This  work  is  the  first  scientific  and  entirel^ unbiased 
argument  against  Bolshevism  in  favor  of  democratic 
representative  government  by  majorities.  The  force  of 
Macdonald's  logic  goes  home  all  the  more  surely,  be- 
cause it  is  the  reasoned  conviction  of  a  man  of  un- 
doubted integrity  and  unimpeachable  moral  courage. 
The  publishers  believe  that  this  book  is  as  important  a 
contribution  for  our  day  as  was  the  essay  on  "Liberty" 
by  John  Stuart  Mill  for  his  time.  At  any  rate,  the  cause 
of  Democracy  as  against  Dictatorship  has  found  its  ablest 
advocate  so  far  in  Ramsay  Macdonald,  and  its  best,  per- 
haps classical, expression  in  his  book  "PARLIAMENT 
AND  REVOLUTION."  The  publishers  feel  confident 
that  it  will  be  welcomed  by  all  friends  of  democracy. 

THOMAS  SELTZER  5  West  50th  Street,  N.  Y  ' 


THE   NEW   LIBRARY  OF 
SOCIAL  SCIENCE 

Edited  by  J.  Ramsay  Macdonald 

The  subjects  to  be  dealt  with  in  this  series 
concern  the  vital  issues  of  the  day — political, 
social  and  industrial.  The  most  important 
questions  which  confront  society  in  these 
critical  times  will  be  treated  boldly  and  ade- 
quately by  recognized  authorities  who  can 
write  clearly  and  entertainingly.  The  series 
is  intended  to  appeal,  primarily,  to  the  gen- 
eral public,  to  every  intelligent  man  and 
woman,  but  it  is  hoped  that  it  will  also  prove 
of  value  to  the  students  of  sociology,  politics 
and  economics. 


PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 


PARLIAMENT 

AND 

REVOLUTION 


BY 
J.  KAMSAY  MACDONALD 


^ 


NEW    YORK 

SCOTT  &  SELTZER 
1920 


Copyright,  1920, 
By  Scott  &  Seltzer,  Inc. 

All  Rights   Reserved 
Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


CONTENTS 

Page 

I    Democracy 1 

II    Revolutionary  Democracy     .     .  6 

III  The  Russian  Revolution    ...  27 

IV  The  Dictatorship  of  the  Prole- 

tariat       35 

V    The  Soviet  Franchise    ....  48 

VI     Soviet   Democracy 60 

VII    Territorial  v.  Trade  Constitu- 
encies       70 

VIII    Parliament .     .  84 

IX    *' Direct  Action" 103 

X    Revolution 128 

XI    The  Independent  Labour  Party  147 
Memorandum  on  House  of  Com- 
mons Business 159 


PARLIAMENT    AND 
REVOLUTION 

I 

DEMOCRACY 

Even  before  the  War  came  to  displace  in  the 
minds  of  people  thoughts  of  ordered  progress 
by  change  of  opinion  and  put  in  their  stead 
those  of  violent  conquest  of  power,  impatience 
was  being  shown  with  Parliament  and  repre- 
sentative Government  as  the  means  of  express- 
ing the  popular  will;  even  the  popular  will 
itself  was  being  analyzed  out  of  existence. 
James  Mill's  article  on  "Government"  which 
appeared  in  1820  in  the  Supplement  to  the 
Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  expressed  the  faith 
of  the  Parliamentary  Radicals.  This  was  very 
simple.  Give  the  people  the  vote,  the  argu- 
ment ran,   and   Parliament  will   respond   to 

popular   desires.     "If  the   community   itself 

1 


2         PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

were  the  choosing  body,  tlie  interest  of  the 
community  and  that  of  the  choosing  body 
would  be  the  same."  All  the  selfishness  of  the 
ruling  classes  will  disappear  because  the  ruling 
classes  will  themselves  disappear.  This  was 
the  argument  for  Democracy.  Its  foundation 
rested  upon  the  assumption  that  the  enfran- 
chised masses  had  first  of  all  an  abiding  inter- 
est in  their  own  concerns,  in  the  next  place  that 
they  had  the  intelligence  to  find  ways  and 
means  for  producing  the  results  which  they 
desired,  or  that  they  would  trust  to  guides  who 
themselves  had  the  intelligence  and  the  com- 
mon interest.  The  experiences  of  the  last 
three-quarters  of  a  century  have  thrown  doubts 
upon  these  assumptions.  Even  if  we  regard 
the  election  of  December,  1918,  as  being  a 
special  manifestation  of  passionate  blindness 
and  an  exploitation  by  political  leaders,  moved 
by  unusually  low  standards  of  honor,  of  the 
emotions  of  a  country  just  released  from  the 
horrible  stress  of  war  and  intoxicated  by  the 


DEMOCRACY  3 

delight  of  victory,  elections  have  not  shown  on 
the  part  of  the  masses  that  vigilant  watchful- 
ness and  that  consistency  in  thought  and  in- 
terest which  James  Mill  assumed.  Therefore, 
there  have  arisen  anti-Parhamentary  move- 
ments; new  ideas  have  sprung  up  regarding 
the  relations  between  political  and  industrial 
action;  new  theories  of  the  State  have  ap- 
peared; new  philosophies  of  mass  action  have 
been  propounded;  new  proposals  for  Parlia- 
mentary government  made;  and,  finally,  the 
Bolshevist  revolution  and  the  establishment 
of  the  Soviet  system  in  Russia  have  spread 
abroad  a  totally  new  conception  of  political 
control,  of  proletariat  action,  and  of  political 
democracy. 

The  danger  to-day  is  twofold.  On  the  one 
hand  we  may  refuse  to  learn  from  experience ; 
we  may  cling  blindly  to  old  habits  and  assump- 
tions, and  may  miss  the  opportunities  for 
effective  change  which  the  shattering  blows  of 
war  have  given  us,  and  those  opportunities 


4        PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

will  pass  by  and  not  come  again.  On  the  other 
hand,  impelled  by  revolutionary  enthusiasm,  we 
may  make  changes  which  will  appear  to  be 
great,  but  will  be  in  reality  superficial,  and  will 
not  touch  the  real  problems  of  government  and 
political  authority,  and  thus  we  shall  doom  the 
coming  generation  to  disappointment,  and  to 
that  worst  of  all  kinds  of  reaction  when  the  ac- 
tive minds  of  the  mass  give  up  the  struggle  for 
liberty  in  despair  of  ever  succeeding.  Is  there 
a  single  person  who  has  been  in  the  Socialist 
movement  for  twenty  years  who,  looking  back, 
is  not  saddened  by  the  long  disrupting  contro- 
versies raised  by  mere  will-o'-the-wisps  who  to- 
day are  forgotten  or  disgraced,  but  who  in  their 
time  distracted  the  movement,  dazzled  it  with 
their  marsh  flares,  and  misled  it  by  their  antics? 
The  Socialist  movement,  on  account  of  the 
complexities  of  the  problems  it  raises,  of  the 
unexplored  regions  of  human  conduct  which 
it  has  to  traverse,  of  the  assumptions  which  it 
has  to  make  because  experience  has  not  yet 


DEMOCRACY  5 

been  acquired,  is  of  all  movements  the  one 
which  ought  never  to  lose  a  footing  on  reality 
whilst  it  stretches  out  to  attain  the  ideal,  one 
which  ought  never  to  lose  balance  in  its  pro- 
gressive efforts.  Men  on  a  pilgrimage  do  not 
run  hither  and  thither  all  day  long  after  but- 
terflies ;  they  find  their  way  by  the  sun  and  the 
stars.  So,  it  is  not  good  enough  for  us  to  fly 
from  the  State  to  National  Guilds,  or  from 
Parliaments  to  Soviets,  because  public  opinion 
has  so  often  baffled  us  and  because  dishonest 
men  are  elected  to  the  seats  of  princes.  In 
what  sense  has  representative  democracy 
failed?  Why  has  it  failed?  Can  we  devise  a 
quicker  acting  and  more  certain  method  ?  Only 
when  we  have  answered  these  questions  are  we 
in  a  position  to  make  constructive  proposals  of 
our  own  or  adopt  with  intelligence  those  of 
other  people. 


II 

REVOLUTIONARY  DEMOCRACY 

The  difficulties  in  the  way  of  the  successful 
working  of  Parliamentary  representative  gov- 
ernment are  many,  and  must  be  many,  and  they 
must  provoke  and  dishearten  those  of  keen  po- 
litical intelligence  and  definite  purpose.  The 
best  that  can  be  done  for  many  institutions  is 
to  excuse  them,  not  to  justify  them,  but  at  the 
same  time  show  how  they  may  be  reformed 
until  they  can  be  justified. 

Democracy  includes  the  passivity  of  a  crowd 
of  no  settled  opinions,  no  well-conceived  aims, 
no  policy,  as  well  as  the  activity  of  sections 
which  know  what  they  are  driving  at  and  be- 

6 


REVOLUTIONARY    DEMOCRACY  1 

lieve  that  they  know  how  to  get  there.  Every- 
one who  works  with  and  through  pubHc  opinion 
works  with  a  heavy  handicap  against  him.  At 
this  present  moment,  we  know  the  mass  at  its 
worst — a  mass  composed  not  of  people  who 
reflect,  but  of  people  who  feel,  its  "opinion" 
like  a  sea  lashed  into  storm  by  winds,  not  like 
a  river  flowing  onwards  in  well-defined  chan- 
nels; its  activities  of  the  nature  of  demon- 
strations, not  of  thoughts;  roused  by  cries, 
catchwords,  and  phrases,  and  appealed  to 
through  its  simpler  emotions.  The  mass  mind 
in  times  like  this  is  still  the  elemental  mind  of 
primitive  man,  and  its  rationale  belongs  to  the 
instinct  through  which  social  cohesion  grew 
rather  than  to  the  reason  by  which  this  social 
cohesion  develops.  Thus  it  can  be  moved  by 
the  highest  moral  idealism  and  at  the  same  time 
inflamed  by  the  blindest  passions.  It  is  both 
absurdly  generous  and  brutally  cruel ;  it  is  non- 
rational  and  irresponsible;  it  is  blind  to  con- 
tradictions and  inconsistencies  because  emotion 


8         PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

is  not  a  continuous  process  of  the  intelligence, 
but  a  response  to  passing  and  temporary  in- 
fluences; it  is  in  a  continual  condition  of  self- 
flattery. 

But  how  can  it  be  otherwise  during  a  war? 
During  wars  many  changes  are  born,  rational 
and  revolutionary^  but  they  come  to  vigour  only 
when  the  war  itself  has  ended.  We  must  be 
careful  to  discriminate  between  the  various  suc- 
ceeding phases  of  the  war  mind.  Wars  are 
fought  on  the  emotions  of  the  primitive  herd, 
when  reason  becomes  a  menace  and  must  be 
curbed  by  an  inflammatory  and  dishonest  press 
and  repressed  by  Defence  of  the  Realm  Acts ; 
when  moral  temper  which  comes  from  a  peace- 
ful civilisation  is  weakness,  and  must  be  per- 
verted or  burnt  up  in  ardent  heat.  War  is  a 
contradiction  of  everything  which  belongs  to 
civilisation,  and  can  be  carried  on  only  by  the 
creation  of  the  mentality  which  preceded  civili- 
sation. If  an  election,  held  under  the  condi- 
tions of  the  last,  reproduces  the  features  of  a 


REVOLUTIONARY    DEMOCRACY  9 

mass  meeting  of  a  primitive  village  when  its 
painted  warriors  returned  in  trimnph,  who  can 
wonder?  Bishops,  professors,  and  clodhoppers 
alike  were  seized  with  the  spirit  which  issues 
from  beaten  tom-toms.  We  can  see  them  dance 
— aprons,  hoods,  fustian,  all  flying  in  the  wind, 
ej  aculating  the  woodland  emotions  of  their  ar- 
boreal forefathers  in  nervous  English.  Such  is 
the  nature  of  things.  But  this  will  pass,  and 
the  experience  of  the  moment  must  not  be  re- 
garded as  normal  or  be  made  the  reason  for  the 
creation  of  new  forms  of  Government;  nor 
must  the  destructive  emotions  of  war  be  car- 
ried into  the  peace  for  reconstructive  purposes. 
They  inevitably  determine  our  Treaties  of 
Peace,  but  we  must  treat  them  with  grave  sus- 
picion as  the  architects  of  a  governing  democ- 
racy. A  Treaty  of  Peace  is  always  the  voice 
of  war,  leaving  war  conditions  untouched  and 
assuming,  as  Sir  Douglas  Haig  has  said,  that 
there  is  to  be  "a  next  time."  That  arises  from 
the  weakness  of  man's  moral  nature  which 


10       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

makes  him  put  his  trust  in  force.  The  war 
emotion,  however,  need  not  be  carried  into  do- 
mestic affairs.  Nothing  of  permanent  con- 
structive value  can  come  out  of  it. 

Yet,  even  in  ordinary  times,  and  when  de- 
mocracy as  we  know  it  is  working  at  its  best, 
Mill's  dream  of  a  vigilant  community  electing 
a  body,  "the  interest  of  which  would  be  identi- 
cal with  that  of  the  community,"  has  never  been 
realised.  A  great  and  determining  section  of 
the  mass  does  not  think  for  itself;  it  divides 
on  trivialities;  it  will  sacrifice  the  interests  of 
to-morrow  to  its  appetite  to-day ;  tinsel  allures 
it ;  when  its  representatives  come  before  it  it  is 
not  well  equipped  to  judge  them.  Slowly,  very 
slowly,  do  intelligence  and  reflection  permeate 
the  mass,  though  the  leaven  is  there  and  will 
work  more  quickly  when  we  revise  our  educa- 
tional methods  and  are  not  content  to  send  from 
our  schools  millions  of  people  whose  capacity 
to  read  only  makes  them  the  prey  of  the  most 
worthless   and  mentally   devastating  printed 


REVOLUTIONARY    DEMOCRACY        11 

matter,  and  when  we  give  to  our  "respectable" 
people  some  worthier  ideals  of  life  than  those 
which  degrade  the  taste  and  the  intelligence  of 
the  bulk  of  our  middle  classes  to-day. 

When  there  is  a  great  mass  of  electors  pos- 
sessing no  conception  of  community  well-being 
and  no  political  interest  beyond  the  excitement 
which  an  election  affords,  political  majorities 
are  but  the  temporary  creations  of  active  mi- 
norities, and  these  are  enormously  aided  if  they 
have  been  successful  in  embodying  their  cause 
in  attractive  catchwords  that  pass  as  coins. 
Until  intellectual  coinage  is  minted  by  the  in- 
dividual at  his  own  mint,  it  will  remain  debased. 
The  winning  of  majorities  is  thus  an  art,  and 
in  recent  years,  owing  to  the  creation  of  a  press 
which  doctors  news  and  pursues  the  policy  of 
keeping  its  readers  ill-informed,  and  to  the 
over-development  of  party  machinery  and  the 
creation  of  a  professional  body  of  political 
agents,  the  growth  of  intelligent  political  opin- 
ion has  been  discouraged  and  the  electioneer- 


12       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

ing  art  has  become  too  much  of  a  trick.  The 
interests  of  part}^ — abused — have  created  a 
condition  of  things  which  tends  to  lower  the 
value  of  political  decisions.  The  danger  to  a 
healthy  public  life  is  not  the  professional  poli- 
tician, but  the  professional  political  agent;  the 
evil  with  which  we  are  faced  is  not  so  much  a 
stupid  jury,  but  a  system  of  trial  which  pre- 
vents the  jury  getting  at  the  facts,  which  with- 
draws its  thoughts  from  the  evidence  and  ob- 
tains from  it  a  verdict  upon  false  issues.  Given 
free  play  and  serious  discussion,  and  reason  will 
win,  but  electoral  methods  are  designed  to  pre- 
vent that.  That  is  the  real  evil  which  might  be 
made  a  justification  for  anti-Parliamentary 
creeds.  That  is  the  phenomenon  which  can  be 
made  to  justify  the  argument  that  majorities 
are  the  creation  of  capitalist  minorities,  that  by 
democratic  methods  we  can  never  effect  more 
than  superficial  changes  upon  Society,  that  de- 
mocracy can  never  be  self -redeeming,  just  as  a 
sunken  slum  population  can  never  be  the  in- 


REVOLUTIONARY    DEMOCRACY        13 

strument  for  effecting  decent  house  building. 
I  do  not  accept  the  conclusion,  but  the  argu- 
ment in  favour  of  it  is  strong. 

Here  I  shall  leave  it  for  the  time  being  and 
pursue  the  enquiry  into  the  more  legitimate  in- 
fluences that  move  this  mass  of  no  steady  politi- 
cal convictions,  but  which  gives  us  Parliamen- 
tary majorities. 

"Unless  the  Representative  Body  is  chosen 
by  a  portion  of  the  community  the  interest  of 
which  cannot  be  made  to  differ  from  that  of 
the  community,"  says  James  Mill  in  the  article 
to  which  I  have  referred,  "the  interest  of  the 
community  will  infallibly  be  sacrificed  to  the 
interest  of  the  rulers."  Mill  believed  such  a 
failure  to  be  impossible;  if  possible  "the  pros- 
pect of  mankind  is  deplorable."  To-day  we 
know  that  political  disputes  nearly  all  turn 
upon  what  "the  interest  of  the  community" 
means.  Simple  and  unenlightened  experience 
does  not  show  it.  A  thousand  answers  would 
be  given  by  a  thousand  electors  if  asked  how 


14       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

they  conceived  national  interests  in  relation  to 
their  own  needs.  How  are  these  political  opin- 
ions regarding  "the  interest  of  the  community" 
formed  ? 

Amongst  intelligent  people  they  are  formed 
primarily  by  rational  opinion  and  interest. 
"The  interest  of  the  community"  is  not  a  static 
but  a  dynamic  conception.  Every  living  So- 
ciety throws  up  rational  movements  of  con- 
structive criticism — as  Capitalism  throws  up 
Socialism — which  tends  to  modify  and  trans- 
form it,  so  that  in  social  history  we  have  a 
record  of  progressive  change  similar  to  that  em- 
bedded in  the  rocks.  This  evolutionary  move- 
ment of  the  constructive  reason  comes  into 
conflict  with  habit  and  interest,  the  two  great 
conservative  forces  of  Society.  But  interest  is 
always  divided.  There  are  the  interests  of  the 
dispossessed,  which  the  social  idealists  use  for 
constructive  purposes,  and  the  interests  of  the 
possessors  which  ally  themselves  with  habit  to 
maintain  the  status  quo.    Normally,  this  con- 


REVOLUTIONARY    DEMOCRACY         15 

flict  is  carried  on  by  discussion,  by  appeals  for 
majorities,  by  trade  union  action,  by  legisla- 
tion, by  education,  and  a  slow  transformation 
takes  place,  the  status  quo  always  offering  a 
resistance  which  is  formidable,  and  which  often 
means  that  as  soon  as  any  change  takes  place 
the  system  adapts  itself  to  it,  but  is  not  changed 
itself.  Thus  the  forces  of  revolution  grow, 
until  in  the  end  the  new  system  of  idea  and 
need  becomes  like  wine  in  the  old  bottles  of  the 
status  quo,  and  the  question  is,  will  the  bottles 
burst?  If  the  organisation  of  Society  were  like 
old  wine  bottles  it  would  burst,  but  whether  So- 
ciety uses  its  powers  or  not  it  undoubtedly  has 
the  faculty  of  changing  its  bottles  with  its  wine. 
Will  it  do  so?  That  is  the  question  in  dispute 
between  the  schools  of  political  action  and  of 
revolution.  The  one  says  that  revolutionary 
ideas  transform  the  structure  of  Society  as  they 
themselves  progress;  the  other  says  that  social 
structure  is  so  rigid  that  only  definite  revolu- 
tionary acts  can  change  it. 


16       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

To-day  we  are  in  revolutionary  times.  War 
is  always  destructive  of  the  social  status  quo. 
It  rapidly  produces  new  social  relationships ;  it 
exposes  the  thoughts  and  the  habits  of  peace  to 
new  criticisms;  it  gives  classes  and  interests  a 
new  value  in  society,  and  gives  importance  to 
the  lowest  classes  because  of  their  proved  util- 
ity* ;  it  shows  that  within  each  community  there 
has  been  a  conflict  of  interests  which  in  times 
of  national  stress  threatens  destruction ;  it  stirs 
up  stagnant  waters  and  leaves  them  unrestf ul ; 
it  transforms  opposition  and  discontent  into 
destructive  force  and  revolutionary  methods. 
Thus  during  the  war  Capitalism  as  the  ruling 
power  in  Society  has  been  challenged.  Labour 
has  had  to  be  made  a  national  co-partner  (if 
many  representatives  of  Labour  were  content 
with  a  mean  place  in  the  co-partnership  or 
placed  their  own  importance  before  the  advan- 


*  Note  Mr.  Asquith's  speech,  in  which  he  argued 
that  because  women  made  munitions  he  had  been  con- 
verted to  women's  franchise. 


REVOLUTIONARY   DEMOCRACY        17 

tage  of  the  movement  which  they  were  created 
to  advance,  that  does  not  affect  what  actually 
took  place) ;  its  place  in  the  workshop  has  had 
to  be  admitted  to  be  unsatisfactory ;  its  subordi- 
nation to  Capitalism  has  come  to  be  regarded  as 
a  menace  to  internal  tranquillity ;  the  profiteer- 
ing characteristics  of  Capitalism  have  become 
offensive  to  the  community ;  national  control  of 
mines  and  railways  has  been  proved  to  be  neces- 
sary; such  enquiries  as  that  conducted  by  the 
Coal  Commission  have  become  possible;  and 
the  revelations  of  wholesale  pillage  of  national 
wealth  by  landlords  and  capitalists  have  been 
made  to  a  sensitive  public — a  public  which  is 
little  inclined  to  hesitate  before  it  acts.  That 
the  war  has  done. 

This  destruction  of  habit  and  shattering  of 
the  status  quo  have  created  revolutionary  con- 
ditions not  because  they  have  unloosed  agita- 
tors, but  because  they  have  awakened  the  rea- 
son of  thinking  people,  the  fears  of  others,  and 
the  acquisitiveness  of  still  more,  and  also  be- 


18       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

cause  they  have  taught  the  people  that  words 
and  thoughts  should  be  at  once  translated  into 
action.  We  know,  however,  that  all  this  will 
pass.  These  are  the  moments  after  a  storm, 
when  every  feature  of  the  landscape  stands 
out  in  clear  outline,  when  there  is  vigour  in  the 
air.  The  mists  will  rise  again,  familiarity  will 
blind  us  both  to  good  and  to  evil,  and  that  the 
conflicting  interests  and  reasons  know.  The 
question  that  intelligent  Labour  has  to  face  is : 
Can  this  opportunity,  before  it  passes,  be  seized 
to  make  revolutionary  conditions  fructify  in 
organic  social  change?  Or  are  Capitalism  and 
exploitation  after  a  period  of  diplomatic  giving 
and  taking,  yielding  and  entrenching,  to  appear 
a  few  months  hence  masters  of  the  new  condi- 
tions as  they  were  masters  of  the  old  ?  Labour 
sees  the  golden  moments  go,  and  if  it  would 
hasten  to  use  them  can  it  trust  to  democratic 
methods  ? 

I  have  now  returned  to  where  I  left  the  dis- 
cussion on  Democracy  a  page  or  two  back. 


REVOLUTIONARY   DEMOCRACY        19 

Majorities  are  only  the  following  of  minorities, 
and  to-day  the  governing  minorities  keep  their 
power  by  the  press  they  own,  the  conservative 
influence  of  habit,  the  natural  passivity  of 
masses  of  toilers,  the  degradation  of  the  people 
which  is  kept  up  by  drink,  gambling,  and  at- 
tractions which  blind  them  to  their  real  needs. 
Thus  Capitalism  holds  a  position  of  double  se- 
curity because  it  is  the  existing  form  of 
Society,  and  because  its  wealth  and  other  in- 
fluences control  the  emotions  and  motives 
which  determine  the  political  actions  of  the 
mass.  Thus  Parliamentary  government  has 
become  a  capitalist  institution  and  will  remain 
a  capitalist  fortress.  Its  phrases  are  drawn 
from  bourgeois  conceptions  of  government. 
Revolution  is  therefore  required  to  effect  a 
real  change  in  Society.  Such  in  a  few  sen- 
tences is  the  doctrine  which  Lenin,  the  master 
mind  of  the  Russian  revolution,  preaches. 
During  the  revolution  the  structure  of  Capi- 
talism is  to  disappear,  and  with  it  must  go 


20       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

"the  whole  ideology  and  phraseology  of  the 
bourgeois  democracy."  Unless  this  is  done 
the  revolutionary  conditions  will  pass  and  the 
people  will  still  be  in  chains. 

The  revolution  contained  in  this  doctrine  and 
method  is  not  that  of  a  new  idea,  but  is  the 
method  of  Capitalism  adopted  by  Labour 
and  adapted  to  meet  its  needs.  Capi- 
talism, assuming  that  majorities  are  pas- 
sive and  accept  the  thoughts  and  the  wills  of 
minorities,  pursues  a  political  policy  of  sub- 
jection which  it  carries  on  by  reason  of  its 
wealth  and  its  economic  control  of  the  existing 
order.  Thus  Democracy  under  Capitalism  is 
capitalistic.  We  have  now  the  dictatorship  of 
the  capitalist.  Revolutionary  Labour,  also  as- 
suming that  majorities  are  passive,  adopts  a 
policy  of  revolution  to  destroy  the  influence  of 
Capitalism  and  give  the  Democracy  a  working- 
class  form.  Thus  is  Capitalism  hoist  with  its 
own  petard.  It  is  the  capitalist  method  turned 
into  a  recruiting  sergeant  for  the  wage-earn- 


REVOLUTIONARY    DEMOCRACY        21 

ers.  It  is  the  antagonism  between  Capital  and 
Labour  made  critical  by  Labour  arming  itself 
from  capitalist  arsenals.  And  the  capitalist 
has  no  reply  except  to  meet  force  by  force  and 
resource  by  resource;  except  to  hurl  Denikin 
at  the  head  of  Lenin,  not  because  Lenin  is  bad 
or  because  Denikin  is  good,  but  simply  because 
Lenin  must  be  crushed.  For  the  same  reason 
Labour  is  drawn  to  Lenin,  not  because  it  as- 
sociates itself  with  all  that  Lenin  does  or  stands 
for,  but  because  he  is  fighting  its  battle,  and 
because  it  is  not  deeply  influenced  by  the  accu- 
sations of  tyranny  and  so  on  brought  against 
him,  for  it  knows  that  the  accusers  themselves 
have  been  guilty  of  the  same  faults,  though  they 
commit  them  in  a  more  politic  way,  or  in  a  way 
accepted  by  habit. 

The  Socialist  position,  however,  needs  to  be 
clearly  stated.  We  know  perfectly  well  how 
much  truth  there  is  in  the  contention  that  Cap- 
italism, in  the  way  described,  makes  and  keeps 
its  majority,  that  an  active  minority  makes 


22       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

public  opinion,  and  that  a  change  in  the  struc- 
ture of  Society  will  very  speedily  produce  a 
change  in  habit,  and  will  quickly  receive  at  any 
rate  the  passive  acquiescence  of  the  majority. 
We  repudiate  the  right  of  the  capitalist  critics 
of  the  Russian  Revolution  to  condemn  the  dic- 
tatorship of  the  proletariat  in  Russia,  not  only 
because  their  speeches  show  the  most  idiotic  ig- 
norance of  the  subject,  but  because  their  own 
actions  and  methods  deprive  them  of  the  right 
of  criticism.  But  Socialists  ought  to  maintain 
a  wider  and  higher  view  than  that  of  capitalist 
subjection.  A  proletarian  democracy  depend- 
ent upon  a  mass,  the  political  function  of  which 
is  to  receive  the  stamp  of  some  governing  mi- 
nority, is  unthinkable.  The  prospects  of  such 
a  state  are  indeed  deplorable.  Lenin  has  him- 
self, in  a  message  to  Hungary  which  was  pub- 
lished in  UHumanite  in  July,  1919,  admitted 
that  the  transition  time  of  dictatorship  during 
which  Socialism  is  to  emerge  from  Capitalism 
is  to  be  prolonged.     "A  very  long  period  of 


REVOLUTIONARY    DEMOCRACY        23 

transition,"  he  says,  "is  necessary  to  pass  from 
Capitalism  to  Socialism;  the  transformation  of 
production  is  a  difficult  thing;  we  need  time  to 
transform  all  the  conditions  of  life."  When 
the  meaning  of  this  is  considered  it  is  ominous. 
The  dictatorship,  when  the  new  order  has  to  be 
protected  by  force,  by  censorships,  by  repres- 
sion, is  not  to  be  a  short  thing ;  it  is  to  be  a  long 
stage  in  the  evolution  of  Society.  If  this  dic- 
tatorship were  left  to  combat  with  the  internal 
forces  of  the  country  which  it  is  ruling,  it  could 
not  survive,  and  its  short  life  would  be  one  un- 
broken series  of  civil  strife.  No  Socialist  Party 
would  tolerate  such  a  thing  for  long.  The  op- 
position would  not  merely  be  that  of  a  coun- 
ter-revolution, but  of  the  revolution  itself. 
And,  be  it  noted,  Lenin's  task  of  reconstruc- 
tion— Russia  being  far  less  advanced  in  eco- 
nomic complexity  than  we  are — is  much  lighter 
than  ours  would  be,  therefore  the  Russian  tran- 
sition should  be  of  much  shorter  duration  than 
ours.     The  only  safeguard  that  such  an  at- 


24       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

tempt  at  forcible  retention  of  political  power 
would  have,  would  be  for  a  foreign  power  to 
threaten  the  revolution  and  so  unite  all  revo- 
lutionary sections — not  in  support  of  the  dic- 
tatorship, but  in  opposition  to  the  threatened 
invasion.  Thus  the  Allies  went  to  Lenin's  aid 
by  removing  the  fear  of  serious  divisions  in  the 
camp  of  the  revolution.  They  prevented  the 
dictatorship  from  merging  into  democracy, 
and  the  means  they  adopted  to  strike  at  it  only 
strengthened  it. 

I  believe  that  one  of  two  things  will  happen 
in  Russia.  The  Moscow  Government  may  fall, 
destroyed  at  last  by  the  pressure  of  the  Allies 
and  the  enormous  expenditure  of  capitalists  to 
procure  its  defeat.  So  far  as  one  can  see,  how- 
ever, this  is  no  more  likely  to  happen  now  than 
six  months  ago.  Then  this  may  happen:  The 
Moscow  Government  will  modify  its  position, 
as  it  has  done  already.  It  will  abandon  its  ab- 
solute programme;  it  will  recognise  that,  in 
order  to  keep  up  revolutionary  ardour  to  carrj* 


REVOLUTIONARY    DEMOCRACY        25 

it  through  its  first  work,  it  simplified  its  prob- 
lems in  its  imagination,  and  brought  its  Social- 
ist New  Earth  nearer  than  it  actually  was;  it 
will  adopt  views  and  methods  which  it  now  re- 
jects (it  has  done  some  of  this  already),  and 
it  will  commence  the  work  of  evolutionary 
revolution  and  democratic  education.  The 
gain  of  the  revolution  will  then  be  that  it  en- 
abled Socialists  to  acquire  the  political  power 
necessary  for  the  economic  transformation  of 
Society.  The  Government  will  return  and  pick 
up  the  threads  of  social  organisation  where 
the  revolution  broke  them,  and  will  proceed  to 
carry  out  a  policy  of  socialisation  on  precisely 
the  same  plan  as  we  should  do  here  if  a  Social- 
ist Party  were  in  power  at  Westminster.  But 
then  the  economic  change  will  not  have  been 
brought  about  by  the  dictatorship,  which  will 
only  have  policed  the  revolution  and  not  re- 
constructed society. 

The  description  of  the  democratic  mass  as 
capitalist,  for  the  reasons  I  have  given,  is  true ; 


26       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

the  conclusion  that  therefore  it  can  be  nothing 
but  capitahst  under  revolutionary  conditions  is 
gratuitous  and  illogical,  and  has  no  relation 
whatever  to  the  statement  which  is  supposed 
to  prove  it.  Indeed,  the  fact  is  that  if  democ- 
racy under  bourgeois  influences  is  bourgeois, 
under  other  influences  it  will  be  otherwise. 

In  any  event,  before  turning  to  details  to 
prove  this,  I  shall  end  this  discussion  thus  far, 
by  laying  down  a  very  sound  principle.  As  we 
had  no  belief  in  the  parrot  cry  that  the  recent 
war  was  being  waged  to  end  war,  so  ought  we 
to  have  no  belief  in  the  doctrine  that  capitalist 
methods  of  repression  and  force  can  be  used 
by  Socialists  to  free  peoples,  and  that  a  rule  of 
tyranny  is  necessary  as  a  preliminary  to  a  reign 
of  liberty. 


Ill 

THE  RUSSIAN  REVOLUTION 

Russia  has  given  an  answer  to  the  problems 
with  which  I  am  concerned,  and  it  is  a  very 
powerful  one.  It  is  an  answer  of  strenuous  ac- 
tion, and  is  therefore  attractive;  it  is  in  accord 
with  the  revolutionary  emotions  of  the  time,  and 
is  therefore  alluring;  it  has  been  the  object  of 
capitalist  conspiracy,  and  has  compelled  the 
Imperialist  Governments,  masquerading  as 
liberating  powers,  to  unmask  themselves,  and  is 
therefore  commended  to  the  active  working- 
class  minds ;  it  has  embodied  all  the  theoretical 
dogmas  of  the  text  books,  and  therefore,  what- 
ever unhappy  incidents  may  crowd  round  it,  it 

27 


28       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

is  excused  by  logic;  it  has  applied  the  rules  of 
capitalist  control  to  Labour  policy,  and  there- 
fore is  welcomed;  it  produces  the  general  con- 
ception of  Socialism  as  its  purposes,  and  there- 
fore is  accepted.  It  has  aroused  the  fears  and 
the  emnity  of  the  governing  orders  all  over  the 
world,  and  yet  it  has  not  applied  a  single  prin- 
ciple but  what  they  themselves  applied — nor, 
on  the  other  hand,  committed  an  atrocity  but 
what  they  themselves  have  committed  or  con- 
doned. Only,  it  has  applied  these  principles 
from  Labour  standpoints  and  committed  these 
"atrocities"  in  its  striving  for  a  Social  Demo- 
cratic Republic.  The  victims  have  been  un- 
usual; they  are  of  the  classes  who  own  news- 
papers and  who  command  megaphones.  There- 
fore, for  once,  people  are  bidden  to  be  shocked 
at  the  evils  of  a  class  struggle.  When  the  mas- 
ters murdered  the  slaves  no  one  troubled ;  when 
the  slaves  murdered  the  masters  the  world  was 
shocked.  When  it  was  a  poor  woman  who  was 
starved  by  the  rich  the  world  took  no  notice; 


THE  RUSSIAN  REVOLUTION  29 

when  it  was  a  rich  woman  who  was  starved  by 
the  poor  the  world  was  asked  to  cry  out  in  in- 
dignation. Those  of  us  to  whom  murder  and 
starvation  are  always  murder  and  starvation 
whoever  may  be  the  victims  are  alone  entitled 
to  condemn. 

The  Russian  plan  was  simple,  and  may  be 
stated  in  a  series  of  propositions: 

I.  In  a  revolution  force  alone  counts.  Mid- 
dle parties  disappear,  and  only  Left  and  Right 
extremes  remain  to  contest  with  each  other. 
Power  is  seized,  not  granted,  and  the  holders 
of  power  pursue  but  one  policy  whilst  the  revo- 
lution lasts — to  keep  themselves  in  power. 

II.  This  revolution  is  not  one  of  politics 
only.  It  is  a  social  revolution  affecting  the 
economic  structure  of  Society. 

III.  From  these  two  propositions  arises  the 
"dictatorship  of  the  proletariat"  as  a  necessary 
method.  With  a  knife  the  dictatorship  prunes 
mercilessly  the  dead  wood  and  the  parasitic 
growths    of    Society    and    leaves    only    the 


30       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

branches  which  draw  sap  and  contribute  to  life. 
This  is  only  a  revolutionary  act,  but  the  act 
must  be  continued  until  Society  has  adjusted 
itself  to  the  Revolution.  Then  the  ordinary 
processes  of  democracy  come  into  play. 

IV.  This  dictatorship  must  take  the  politi- 
cal form  of  a  class  Government.  To  subject  it 
to  the  control  of  a  National  Assembly  is  im- 
possible. For  the  time  being,  democracy  will 
acquit  Capitalism,  because  it  has  been  fed  on 
Capitalism.  The  leaders  of  the  working  class 
alone  must  be  responsible  for  the  revolution. 
Hence  the  Soviet  system  is  adopted,  not  neces- 
sarily as  a  permanent  form,  but  as  a  revolu- 
tionary safeguard.  In  the  election  of  the 
Soviets  no  one  can  vote  but  the  proletariat, 
because  the  problem  of  what  is  the  best  test 
for  the  franchise  must  be  settled,  during  a 
revolution,  by  disfranchising  those  classes 
against  wliom  the  revolution  is  directed. 

V.  When  the  enemies  of  the  Russian  Revo- 
lution doomed  the  industrial  centres  of  Russia 


THE   RUSSIAN   REVOLUTION  31 

to  starvation,  partly  by  refusing  to  allow  food- 
stuffs to  enter,  and  partly  by  prohibiting  for- 
eign trade  and  thus  paralysing  internal  means 
of  transport,  the  Russian  Government  was 
faced  with  famine,  and  it  decided  that  the  avail- 
able food  should  be  shared  not  in  accordance 
with  power  to  buy  ( so  that  the  rich  might  have 
the  lion's  share) ,  nor  on  the  equalitarian  human 
basis  of  treating  every  living  being  alike  (so 
that  the  useless  classes  would  have  an  equal 
share  with  the  workers ) ,  but  on  the  same  basis 
as  they  had  settled  the  franchise.  He  who  did 
not  work  could  not  eat.  The  exploiters  thus 
starved  first,  and  the  workers  (unlike  the  con- 
ditions of  Germany,  where  the  Allied  block- 
ade starved  an  undue  proportion  of  the  wives 
and  children  of  the  wage-earners)  had  a  bet- 
ter chance  of  maintaining  life.  As  so  many  of 
the  Allied  peoples  say  to  the  starving  children 
of  Germany  and  Austria:  "Serves  you  right; 
your  fathers  are  responsible  for  what  has  hap- 
pened," so  the  Russian  proletariat  makes  reply 


32       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

to  the  Russian  "parasites."  Every  decent  man 
is  horrified,  but  no  honest  man  can  pronounce 
judgment. 

I  have  stated  these  propositions  as  a  Russian 
Bolshevik  would,  in  order  that  the  argument 
and  its  suppositions  may  be  clear.  Russia  was 
in  a  working-class  revolution,  not  of  a  political 
kind,  but  of  a  social  and  economic  kind,  and 
all  the  incidents,  sunny  and  cloudy,  belong  to  a 
revolution  and  not  to  a  peaceful  evolution. 
They  will  all  sink  into  details,  as  similar  things 
in  the  French  Revolution  have  now  done,  as, 
for  instance,  when  Lavoisier,  under  sentence 
of  death,  was  told  that  the  Revolution  had  no 
need  of  savants.  The  revolution  will  not  be 
judged  by  them;  the  revolutionary  govern- 
ment may  be  spattered  by  them  as  the  revo- 
lutionary governments  of  France  have  been; 
but  the  permanent  contributions  that  the  revo- 
lution is  to  make  to  political  liberty  will  depend 
upon  how  far  they  express  social  and  political 
conceptions  that  are  permanently  true. 


THE    RUSSIAN    REVOLUTION  33 

I  only  make  this  comment  now,  as  its  signifi- 
cance is  overlooked  by  many  Independent  La- 
bour Party  critics.  The  Russian  Revolution 
arose  from  political  conditions.  It  was  only 
when  the  political  State  had  collapsed  that 
Socialist  leadership  came  in,  and,  later,  that  the 
fabric  being  built  to  take  the  place  of  that  de- 
stroyed was  of  an  economic  design.  Lenin  did 
not  begin  in  a  State  such  as  we  have  here  at  the 
present  time.  Nor  did  Bela  Kun.  A  time  of 
fundamental  political  unsettlement  ought  to  be 
made  a  time  of  drastic  economic  reconstruc- 
tion, but  the  unsettlement  has  not  been  made 
either  in  Russia  or  in  Hungary  for  the  sake  of 
the  reconstruction,  and  there  is  little  evidence 
that  it  could  have  been. 

Therefore,  in  order  to  understand  revolu- 
tionary events,  we  have  to  discriminate  between 
Russian  political  conditions  and  our  own — be- 
tween the  politics  of  a  beaten  Hungary  and 
that  of  a  victorious  Great  Britain.  The  real 
revolution  was  the  seizure  of  political  power; 


34       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

the  superficial  revolution  was  the  attempt  to 
establish  Socialism  by  force.  The  first  is  the 
permanent  gain;  the  second  will  fail  by  modi- 
fication and  defeat.  Nothing  will  remain  of  it 
except  what  could  have  been  accomplished  by 
the  democratic  use  of  political  power. 


IV 


THE   DICTATORSHIP    OF    THE 
PROLETARIAT 

Let  us  first  of  all  clear  away  the  tempor- 
arily revolutionary  parts  of  a  statement  of  the 
Russian  case  so  that  our  minds  may  be  concen- 
trated on  principles.  Revolutionary  tribunals, 
suppression  of  freedom,  classes  of  food  tickets, 
and  the  long  list  of  such  expedients  belong  ex- 
clusively to  revolution,  and  would  in  some  form 
appear  in  every  revolution,  whatever  interest 
was  controlling  it.  To  this  class  of  happening 
also  belongs  the  execution  of  politicals,  in  which 
Denikin,  Koltchak,  Mannerheim,  and  the  hon- 
oured allies  of  the  Allies  have  proved  them- 

35 


36       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

selves  to  be  far  more  expert  than  the  most 
ruffianly  bands  who  have  abused  the  name  of 
Soviet — commonly  without  Soviet  sanction.* 
These  all  being  put  on  one  side  as  having  much 
less  connection  with  Bolshevism  as  a  principle 
of  social  reconstruction  than  American  lynch- 
ing has  with  the  spirit  of  American  society,  we 
can  consider  the  nature  of  the  Bolshevist  sys- 
tem in  relation  to  democracy  and  freedom,  and 
if  we  discuss  the  Soviet  system  we  shall  have 
pretty  well  exhausted  the  whole  contribution. 
But  as  a  preliminary  to  that  we  must  under- 
stand the  meaning  of  the  "dictatorship  of  the 
proletariat,"  as  this  doctrine,  though  essen- 
tially belonging  to  the  operations  of  a  revolu- 
tion, is  now  held  up  to  us  as  though  it  were  a 
necessary  part  of  Socialist  evolution.     As  I 


*  It  is  of  some  importance  to  note  that  during  the 
war  in  this  country  the  shooting  of  those  opposed  to 
the  Government  was  openly  advocated,  perhaps 
mainly  by  blackguards  and  idiots,  but  very  few  mili- 
tarists thought  it  particularly  reprehensible. 


DICTATORSHIP  OF  THE  PROLETARIAT   37 

have  said,  it  is  a  description  of  the  act  of  seizure 
of  power  when  the  revolution  has  broken  out, 
when  no  representative  government  is  possible, 
when  the  control  of  affairs  must  be  in  the  hands 
of  a  body  of  men  who  have  definite  ideas  of 
what  the  revolution  ought  to  accomplish,  and 
in  the  chaos  of  the  upheaval  are  striving  to 
maintain  the  revolution  and  bring  about  a  set- 
tlement of  a  special  kind — in  Russia,  the  rule 
of  the  proletariat.  Those  who  believe  that  in 
that  transition  stage  the  controlling  will  which 
is  necessary  to  bring  some  order  into  existence 
(and  a  will  is  necessary,  otherwise  the  revolu- 
tion is  only  destructive,  and  reconstruction  is 
left  as  the  plaything  of  any  class  or  interest 
that  may  happen  to  emerge  from  the  welter — 
probably  a  counter-revolution  inspired  by  the 
old  and  temporarily  broken  order)  must  exert 
itself  by  organised  force,  a  conclusion  which 
no  belligerent  government  can  with  either 
moral  or  intelligent  decency  dispute,  will  ac- 
cept as  inevitable  for  the  time  being  a  dictator- 


38       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

ship  of  working-class  leaders  who  will  forcibly 
suppress  all  opposition,  whether  showing  itself 
by  speech  or  action.  This  will  be  temporary 
and  can  last  only  until  the  revolution  begins  to 
settle  down,  and  disrupted  Society  begins  to 
reorganise  itself  upon  some  plan.  Such  is  the 
inevitable  process  of  a  revolution  conducted  in 
the  old  way,  and  in  the  same  spirit  as  the  Allies 
sought  to  exorcise  the  military  madness  from 
Europe.  It  is  "the  tyranny  to  end  all  tyr- 
anny" conceived  on  precisely  the  same  class  of 
ideas  as  "the  war  to  end  all  wars." 

The  conception  is  simple  and  its  logic  is  un- 
assailable once  its  premises  are  granted,  that 
force  is  the  best  or,  indeed,  the  only  means  to 
adopt,  and  no  one  is  in  a  position  to  dispute 
that  except  those  who  have  taken  the  Inde- 
pendent Labour  Party  view  of  the  war  as  a 
political  incident.  The  Bolshevist,  in  relation 
to  democracy,  occupies  exactly  the  same  posi- 
tion as  those  who  supported  "the  holy  war"  do 
towards  peace.    The  operations  of  democracy 


DICTATORSHIP  OF  THE  PROLETARIAT   39 

are  suspended  in  the  interests  of  democracy,  in 
order  to  give  democracy  a  new  start  on  better 
lines.  Just  as  the  Great  Western  Railway  di- 
rectors tore  up  their  rails  one  night  in  order  to 
lay  a  new  and  better  system  next  morning,  so 
the  Bolshevists  have  established  for  the  time 
being  the  "dictatorship  of  the  proletariat." 
The  suppression  of  newspapers,  public  meet- 
ings, the  old  Constitutional  Assembly,  is  only 
the  way  to  a  free  press,  free  speech,  and  a  free 
democracy. 

Clara  Zetkin  is  perfectly  justified  in  her  con- 
clusion, come  to  from  an  assumption  prevalent 
in  Europe  to-day,  that:  "I  hold  that  the  disso- 
lution of  the  Constituent  Assembly,  far  from 
involving  a  sacrifice  of  democracy,  made  de- 
mocracy more  effective."  Another  conclusion 
of  hers  explains  this  in  language  and  thought 
familiar  to  the  majorities  of  the  European  bel- 
ligerent nations.  Referring  to  the  dissolution 
of  the  Assembly,  to  the  mass  terror  and  the 
tyranny,  she  says:  "They  must  be  regarded  as 


40       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

measures  of  military  necessity."  And  to  put 
the  evolutionary  nature  of  the  dictatorship  as 
it  is  regarded  by  its  ablest  supporters  beyond 
doubt,  I  add  this  quotation  from  the  same 
writer:  "The  dictatorship  is  exercised  in  the 
interests  of  the  enormous  majority  of  the  pop- 
ulation, and  it  is  no  more  than  a  means  of 
transition,  but  it  aims  at  suspending  itself,  at 
rendering  itself  impossible,  at  realising  the 
ideal  of  democracy — a  free  people,  in  a  free 
land,  living  by  free  labour."* 

This  is  the  evolution  of  revolution.  Regard- 
ing the  arguments  which  knit  it  into  a  system 
of  action,  the  Independent  Labour  Party  has 
to  repeat  the  political  arguments  it  used  during 
the  war — arguments  that  received  the  crown 


*  So  also  in  the  memorandum  presented  by  Lenin 
to  the  first  Congress  of  the  Communist  International, 
the  suppression  of  the  freedom  of  the  press  was  justi- 
fied to  give  "effective  equaHty"  to  the  workers.  The 
press  under  capitalism  is  a  means  of  exploitation  and 
of  "falsifying  news  and  misleading  public  opinion." 
Again,  with  everything  Lenin  says  by  way  of  criti- 


DICTATORSHIP  OF  THE  PROLETARIAT   41 

of  fulfilment  almost  as  they  were  being  uttered. 
A  revolution  made  in  the  spirit  and  with  the 
weapoijs  of  the  old  society  cannot  be  made  the 
occasion  of  the  birth  of  the  new  world.  That 
principle  guided  us  well  in  the  war;  it  must 
guide  us  now.  Tyranny,  like  war,  breeds  its 
progeny  after  its  own  kind. 

A  minority  must  control  a  revolution,  and 
whilst  the  earthquake  is  at  its  maximum  repre- 
sentative democracy  is  impossible.  We  must 
then  have  Committees  of  Action,  not  delibera- 
tive assemblies.  But  suppression  and  force 
even  in  a  revolution  are  methods  which  pro- 
long the  powers  of  the  earthquake,  which  per- 
petuate the  necessity  and  the  existence  of  the 
tyranny,  as  has  been  seen  in  the  German  So- 


cism  I  agree.  In  the  full  sense  of  the  term  there  is 
no  such  thing  as  Hberty  of  the  press.  The  press,  as 
everyone  of  its  many  victims  knows,  is  an  instrument 
used  to  pervert  opinion,  the  exceptions  being  very 
rare.  But  Lenin's  methods  of  dealing  with  it  cannot 
be  accepted  by  anyone  who  believes  in  the  regenerat- 
ing power  of  liberty. 


42      PARLIAMENT   AND   REVOLUTION 

cialist  Republic,  which  produce  counter-revo- 
lutions, which  hamper  the  assimilation  of  the 
revolution  by  Society.  The  problem  facing  the 
leaders  of  all  revolutions  is  how  to  drive  their 
ship  as  quickly  as  possible  across  the  surging 
waters  of  the  upheaval,  over  to  the  quieter  seas 
beyond,  where  reason  and  consultation  and  ac- 
quiescence can  come  into  play.  For  a  "dicta- 
torship of  the  proletariat"  to  compel  the  organs 
of  a  counter-revolution  to  publish  articles  tell- 
ing the  truth  about  the  revolution  is  a  far  wiser 
and  better  paying  policy  than  to  suppress  the 
pernicious  sheets.  To  keep  a  firm  hand  upon 
conspiracy  and  an  open  door  to  opinion  is  the 
wisdom  of  the  revolutionary  dictatorship. 

I  sat  one  day  in  Amsterdam  with  two  of  the 
leaders  of  the  German  Socialist  Majority,  de- 
tailing the  objections  I  took  to  their  police  and 
military  rule  in  Berlin.  Point  after  point  of 
their  policy  of  repression  was  reviewed  and  dis- 
cussed— meetings,  newspapers,  organisation. 
This  was  quite  firmly  established  in  the  end. 


DICTATORSHIP  OF  THE  PROLETARIAT    43 

at  any  rate  in  my  mind:  Repression  increases 
the  difficulties  which  it  was  begun  to  meet  and 
it  entangles  and  does  not  free;  repression  is  a 
policy  which  once  begun  influences  the  whole 
of  the  policy  of  the  government  as  a  drop  of 
dye  in  a  glass  of  water;  repression  multiplies 
the  general  difficulties  which  the  "dictatorship" 
has  to  meet  in  emerging  from  the  "dictator- 
ship" into  the  democratic  phase  of  the  revolu- 
tion ;  repression  makes  a  government  lose  itself 
in  daily  details  and  obscures  general  intentions ; 
repression  transfers  policy  from  the  personali- 
ties which  alone  can  maintain  a  "dictatorship" 
into  the  bureaucracies  and  the  machines  which 
work  repression,  and  so  the  revolution  changes 
from  being  a  movement  of  ideas  to  becoming 
a  series  of  bloody  events ;  repression  finally  de- 
velops into  a  complete  policy  of  extermination 
and  destroys  that  of  national  conversion. 

When  the  "dictatorship"  hastening  into  a 
democracy  is  assailed  from  the  outside  by  for- 
eign armies,  its  evolution  is  checked  and  the 


44       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

transition  period  lengthened,  with  a  consequen- 
tial intensification  of  the  disturbances  of  that 
period.  The  Russian  Revolution  began  with 
Czardom  as  its  parent  and  inherited  the  strife 
of  Czardom — its  police  and  bureaucratic  tyr- 
anny. But  had  it  not  been  for  the  attacks  of 
the  Allied  Governments  the  earthquake  stage 
of  the  Russian  Revolution  would  have  been 
over  by  now,  and  the  world  would  have  had  the 
advantage  of  witnessing  the  assimilation  by 
Russia  of  the  ideas  of  a  Socialist  Republic. 
The  only  effect  so  far  of  this  Allied  attack 
upon  Russian  Socialism  has  been  to  prolong 
the  chaotic  "dictatorship"  stages  of  the  Revo- 
lution. It  created  the  Red  Terror,  it  has  main- 
tained the  revolutionary  tribunals,  it  has  been 
responsible  for  the  executions  of  politicals. 
The  Recording  Angel,  who  sees  more  truly 
than  men  see,  has  put  down  the  crimes  of  the 
past  years  in  Russia  not  to  the  Soviet  Govern- 
ment, but  to  France,  Great  Britain  and  Amer- 
ica, and  on  their  doorsteps  history  will  lay  them. 


DICTATORSHIP  OF  THE  PROLETARIAT   45 

The  Hungarian  Revolution,  begun  on  the 
principles  of  liberty  I  have  indicated,  was  pass- 
ing rapidly  from  "dictatorship"  into  democ- 
racy, practically  free  from  violence,  when  the 
Allies  interfered  and  threw  it  back  into  blood- 
shed. But  the  most  promising  of  all  was  the 
bloodless  work  of  Kurt  Eisner,  which  was 
ended  so  tragically,  and  then  Bavaria  fell 
under  the  sway  of  those  who  worship  force  and 
feel  secure  only  behind  a  policeman  and  a  sol- 
dier. 

Just  as  the  Independent  Labour  Party  made 
its  great  contribution  in  1914  to  the  politics  of 
war,  so  should  it  now  make  as  distinctive  a  con- 
tribution to  the  politics  of  revolution.  And 
the  first  sentence  of  that  contribution  must  be 
a  declaration  that  whilst  a  revolutionary  "dic- 
tatorship" is  needed  to  guide  a  revolution  into 
democracy,  the  only  policy  which  will  do  that 
safely  and  swiftly  is  one  of  political  freedom, 
of  moral  courage,  of  vigilant  reason.  When 
the  policeman  and  the  soldier  are  called  in  to 


46       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

the  Downing  Streets  and  the  Smolnys  of  the 
world,  they  accept  the  invitation  not  to  help 
them,  but  to  dominate  them.  But  if  the  soldier 
is  not  to  be  used,  the  preparation  before  the 
revolution  must  be  one  of  political  propa- 
ganda, which  creates  the  new  Society  in  the 
bosom  of  the  old  as  the  butterfly  grows  in  the 
chrysalis.  Unless  Society  is  prepared  to  adopt 
the  new  order  before  the  Revolution,  there  is 
no  guarantee  that  it  will  do  so  after  it. 

The  argument:  "We  must  make  a  Revolu- 
tion in  order  to  transform  capitalism  into  So- 
cialism," is  false.  If  the  governing  and  pos- 
sessing authorities  make  a  revolution  by  mak- 
ing progressive  ideas  explosive,  as  the  Czar  and 
his  police  did  in  Russia,  the  architects  of  a  new 
world  must  not  shirk  the  responsibilities  which 
that  will  bring  to  them,  and  must  not  refrain 
from  propagating  their  ideas  because  foolish 
people  create  revolutions  in  trying  to  suppress 
them ;  and  should  a  revolution  come,  the  party 
which  is  to  be  most  successful  in  establishing  a 


DICTATORSHIP  OF  THE  PROLETARIAT   47 

Socialist  Commonwealth  by  it  is  that  which  is 
to  depend  upon  freedom  rather  than  force,  and 
which  is  to  array  around  it  the  powers  of  the 
intelligent  democracy  rather  than  trust  to  the 
authority  of  a  select  and  over-awing  minority. 
In  other  words,  to  plan  a  revolution  in  order  to 
impose  a  new  system  on  Society  is  folly  or 
worse;  to  face  a  revolution  in  order  to  bring 
the  new  order  to  birth  is  another  matter.  Even 
then  the  revolutionary  dictatorship  would  have 
to  be  much  more  limited  than  it  is  in  Russia. 
A  dictatorship  to  maintain  the  revolution  in  its 
critical  eruptive  stages  may  be  tolerated;  but 
a  dictatorship  through  the  period  of  reconstruc- 
tion, a  dictatorship  from  which  is  to  issue  the 
decrees  upon  which  the  reconstruction  of  So- 
ciety is  to  be  based,  is  absolutely  intolerable. 
No  Socialist  worth  anything  would  submit  to 
such  a  thing.  It  can  be  maintained  only  in 
such  diffused  communities  as  Russia;  it  can  be 
admired  only  by  Socialists  at  a  distance. 


THE  SOVIET  FRANCHISE 

Whilst  a  dictatorship  is  inseparable  from 
a  revolution,  it  should  be  based  upon  political, 
and  not  upon  military,  conceptions  of  the  prob- 
lem of  revolutions,  and,  if  this  seems  imprac- 
ticable and  impossible,  one  has  only  to  work 
out  in  detail  the  consequences  and  the  conse- 
quences of  the  consequences  to  an  infinity  of 
stages  of  the  first  resort  to  repressive  measures 
at  the  early  stages  of  revolutions. 

That  brings  me  to  the  political  methods  of 
Russia,  that  is,  to  the  Soviet.  The  Soviet — a 
Russian  word  meaning  Council — is  the  instru- 
ment of  government  by  the  proletariat,  and  its 

48 


THE  SOVIET  FRANCHISE  49 

franchise  has  first  to  be  considered.  The  Con- 
stitution states  that  "it  is  impossible  during  the 
present  decisive  struggle  to  admit  exploiters  to 
any  organ  of  government  or  authority."  Thus 
all  parasites  and  non-producers  are  disfran- 
chised, all  who  employ  others  for  profit  and 
those  living  on  unearned  incomes,  together  with 
members  of  what  are  considered  to  be  useless 
professions,  like  that  of  a  priest. 

Ever  since  mass  voting  was  considered,  the 
question  of  tests  for  political  intelligence  has 
been  discussed ;  ever  since  Government  has  ex- 
isted the  question  as  to  whether  classes  exist — 
e.g.,  Roman  Catholics  and  Nonconformists — 
whose  allegiance  to  a  power  other  than  the  po- 
litical State,  or  whose  interests,  are  a  danger  to 
the  community,  has  been  debated.  Property 
tests,  educational  tests,  religious  tests,  age 
standards,  and,  in  our  own  time,  military  tests, 
have  been  considered,  and  now  the  Russian  test 
of  being  a  producer  has  been  applied.  This 
last  test,  though  it  comes  much  nearer  to  real 


50       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

social  requirements,  will  not  be  found  to  be  per- 
fect any  more  than  the  others.  It  seems  to 
anticipate  the  ideal  community  in  which  all 
shall  give  service  and  upon  which  no  one  shall 
live  parasitically.  A  free  franchise  in  such  a 
State  would  come  to  the  same  thing  as  that 
which  has  been  imposed  by  the  Soviet  system. 
Moreover,  if  we  compare  the  rationale  of  the 
Russian  franchise  with  our  own,  it  has  no  rea- 
son to  be  ashamed  of  itself.  The  Conservative 
party  would  still  disfranchise  the  mass  of  the 
workers  (except  in  so  far  as  it  has  discovered 
useful  tools  in  them)  ;  our  House  of  Lords  is 
frankly  a  class  organ,  with  power  to  alter  and 
veto  most  of  the  work  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons; the  special  test  which  our  Franchise 
Law  recognises — the  educational  one — is  as 
great  a  failure  as  it  could  well  be,  for  the  rep- 
resentatives sent  by  Oxford  and  Cambridge  to 
the  House  of  Commons  have  been  mostly  un- 
distinguished and  unenlightened,  and  when 
they  became  the  one  or  the  other  they  have 


THE  SOVIET  FRANCHISE  51 

been  quickly  changed.  The  Soviet  franchise 
contains  no  new  principle.  It  proceeds  upon 
old  Conservative  principles,  but  applies  them 
in  new  and  unfamiliar  ways.  It  is  not  the  dis- 
franchisement of  the  poor  by  the  rich,  but  the 
disfranchisement  of  the  rich  by  the  wage- 
earner;  and  if  political  intelligence  freed  from 
purely  personal  interest,  and  an  identification 
of  class  with  communal  interest,  be  the  condi- 
tion of  sound  representative  government,  there 
is  far  more  reason  in  the  Bolshevist  Russian 
method  of  disfranchisement  than  in  the  Con- 
servative British  method.  A  Second  Chamber 
representative  of  industrial  experience  and  the 
wage-earning  class  is  a  far  more  intelligent 
organ  of  government  than  one  representing  the 
aristocracy  of  a  country,  particularly  in  this 
industrial  age.  In  a  sense  they  both  belong  to 
the  same  type  of  representation,  but  the  former 
belongs  to  the  life  of  the  nation,  whilst  the  lat- 
ter belongs  only  to  the  parasitism  of  the  nation. 
If  we  are  to  have  class  government,  it  is  better 


52       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

to  have  the  working  class  in  authority  than  the 
non-producing  class.  The  very  last  people 
who  are  in  a  position  to  object  to  the  Soviet 
franchise  are,  therefore,  our  own  Conserva- 
tive and  Whig  parties,  because  in  condemning 
the  Soviet  principles  they  condemn  their  own. 

But  the  principles  of  Socialism  are  not  those 
of  the  Conservative  or  Whig  parties,  so  that  a 
tu  quoqne  thrown  at  them  does  not  settle  the 
matter  for  us. 

As  a  revolutionary  measure,  for  the  purpose 
of  consolidating  a  revolution,  and  as  a  means 
of  preserving  representative  forms  during  a 
revolutionary  dictatorship,  the  disfranchise- 
ment of  the  interests  assailed  by  the  revolution 
may  be  necessary  and  can  be  defended.  These 
interests  are  then  at  war  with  the  State;  the 
parasite  in  Russia  is  in  the  same  relation  to  his 
State  as  the  German  recently  was  to  ours. 
Theoretically,  this  is  all  quite  plain,  but  when 
we  come  to  actual  practice  it  is  not  quite  so 
plain.    What  are  the  classes  which  give  service 


THE   SOVIET  FRANCHISE  53 

to  the  community?  Obviously  not  only  the 
working  classes,  using  the  expression  to  mean 
the  proletariat.  But  there  is  something  worse 
than  that.  Economic  and  industrial  classes 
have  no  significance  in  a  revolution.  A  revo- 
lution is  a  thing  of  opinion  and  not  of  class, 
and  so  when  repression  is  applied  during  a 
revolution  it  has  to  be  enforced  against  move- 
ments amongst  workers  as  well  as  against  non- 
producers  as  a  class.  If  class  divisions  were 
revolutionary  divisions  no  repression  would  be 
required,  because  the  revolutionary  majority 
would  be  so  decisive.  Or,  if  we  take  the  view 
that  majorities  are  inert  masses  moved  by  the 
will  of  minorities  and  obedient  to  minorities, 
then  a  class  test  does  not  help  us,  because  a  dis- 
franchised minority  or  a  habit  can  still  sway 
these  masses.  A  close  examination  of  what  has 
happened  in  Russia  shows  that  it  is  not  the 
disfranchisement  of  the  parasites  that  has  con- 
solidated the  Soviet  Government,  but  the  ex- 
ternal conspiracies  of  the  Allied  Governments 


54       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

and  the  internal  conspiracies  of  the  counter- 
revolution, together  with  the  exercise  of  the 
tyranny  of  the  ruling  minorities — for  it  is  ab- 
surd to  claim  that  even  under  the  limited  Sov- 
iet franchise  the  electors  have  been  quite  free. 
Given  the  theories  of  a  revolution  held  by  the 
Bolshevists  and  the  conditions  of  Russia,  free- 
dom of  election  is  out  of  the  question. 

Who  is  to  say  that  the  exclusive  enfranchise- 
ment of  the  Trade  Unionists  in  this  country 
must  yield  a  Democratic  Government  such  as 
the  enlightened  leaders  of  the  Labour  Move- 
ment would  like  to  see  in  power  building  up  a 
Socialist  Commonwealth?  It  might,  but  it 
might  not,  and  the  Soviet  constituencies  could 
not  be  trusted  to  criticise  such  a  government 
on  large  views  of  policy  but  rather  on  immedi- 
ate experiences — wages,  unemployment,  and 
things  far  more  insignificant  like  the  volume 
and  the  quality  of  the  supply  of  beer,  if  one 
may  judge  from  the  declared  interests  of  a  sec- 
tion of  the  Trade  Union  leaders  now  in  Parlia- 


THE  SOVIET  FRANCHISE  55 

ment.  Who  can  deny  but  that  to-day  members 
of  Trade  Unions  supporting  the  Labour  Party 
vote,  in  great  numbers,  against  Labour  candi- 
dates? To  characterise  that  by  hard  words 
does  not  remove  it  as  a  fact.  Is  it  not  the  case 
that  the  men  most  distrusted  by  those  most  vo- 
ciferous in  their  praise  of  the  Revolution  as  the 
only  way  to  Socialism,  are  members  of  Trade 
Unions  and  Socialist  societies?  We  must  not 
shut  our  eyes  to  patent  facts  in  order  that  we 
may  rush  into  roads  that  seem  to  be  short  cuts, 
but  which  in  reality  are  not  short  cuts  at  all 
but  mere  by-paths  that  lead  into  the  wilder- 
ness. The  Soviet  franchise  is  not  really  sup- 
ported as  the  franchise  of  a  class  of  producers, 
but  as  a  basis  of  power  for  a  school  of  opinion. 
In  Russia  it  has  secured  the  authority  of  an 
intellectual  minority  of  the  minority,  all  super- 
ficial appearances  notwithstanding. 

The  error  of  the  whole  conception  is  only 
seen  when  we  take  our  stand  firmly  on  the  fact 
that  it  is  opinion  that  makes  revolutions  and 


56       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

makes  them  fruitful.  The  class  problem  and 
all  that  it  involves,  when  it  is  the  subject  of 
political  activity,  is  a  problem  for  the  whole  of 
society — that  is,  a  problem  of  opinion,  and  di- 
visions of  opinion  do  not  correspond  to  eco- 
nomic divisions  of  class.  This  may  be  obscured 
in  the  hot  times  of  revolution  when  an  act  of 
class  enfranchisement  is  made  to  appear  effec- 
tive, whereas  it  is  not  that  which  is  effective  at 
all,  but  the  power  of  the  revolutionary  dicta- 
torship. 

For  normal  purposes  the  theory  breaks  down 
hopelessly.  It  means  the  disfranchisement  of 
some  of  the  most  ardent  and  the  ablest  friends 
of  change;  it  means  that  the  disfranchised 
classes  must  have  no  right  to  express  opinion 
or  to  gain  influence — for  it  must  go  beyond  the 
mere  right  to  vote  and  proscribe  all  opportuni- 
ties to  influence  others  in  voting.  In  a  word, 
it  means  the  complete  elimination  from  society 
of  these  classes.  Lenin's  excuse,  quoted  above, 
for  suppressing  freedom  of  the  press  is  thus 


THE  SOVIET  FRANCHISE  57 

seen  to  be  ingenuous.  That  step  has  been  taken 
because  it  is  involved  in  the  consequences  of 
the  Soviet  franchise. 

The  Sociahst  rephes  that  that  is  what  he 
wants,  and  he  is  right.  But  I  point  out  to  him 
that  he  cannot  get  what  he  wants  by  repression, 
because  by  repression  he  cannot  select  with  any 
accuracy  who  his  victims  are  to  be,  and,  in  ad- 
dition, he  is  dealing  with  an  organism.  Society, 
which  cannot  be  altered  in  its  organs  in  that 
way.  The  Socialist  method  of  arriving  at  that 
end  is  to  get  Society  to  purify  itself. 

I  must  again  direct  attention  to  what  has 
really  happened  in  Russia.  When  Russia  was 
dealing  politically  with  its  parasites  it  was  also 
dealing  with  them  economically.  Its  food  con- 
ditions compelled  it  to  hand  over  the  disfran- 
chised sections  to  starvation;  its  economic  con- 
ditions doomed  them  to  complete  poverty. 
Forces  which  had  little  to  do  with  political  de- 
crees, but  which  were  mainly  economic,  were 
destroying  these  classes  by  killing  them  off  or 


58       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

transferring  them  to  the  ranks  of  wage-earn- 
ers. Therefore,  Russia  has  been  saved  the 
trouble  of  facing  many  poHtical  problems 
which  are  the  sequels  to  disfranchisement,  be- 
cause economics  were  removing  the  classes  from 
which  the  problems  would  have  arisen. 

I  have  now  come  to  an  end  of  this  enquiry, 
and  what  has  been  found  is  this.  The  revolu- 
tionary conditions  of  a  Russia  made  bankrupt, 
first  of  all  by  war,  eliminated  drastically  a  class 
which  Socialism  without  a  revolution  must 
eliminate  by  a  readjustment  of  the  relations 
and  powers  of  the  economic  classes  of  capi- 
talism. The  franchise  in  a  just  Society  will  be 
enjoyed  only  by  service  givers  (an  idea  of 
wide  meaning  because  it  must  include  the  ail- 
ing and  the  old)  because  such  a  Society  will  be 
a  community  of  service  givers,  but  that  com- 
munity cannot  be  created  artificially  by  politi- 
cal disfranchisement.  Political  justice  in  this 
respect  follows  and  does  not  precede  economic 
justice.     We  must  have  Socialism  before  we 


THE  SOVIET  FRANCHISE  59 

have  the  Sociahst  franchise.  When  we  have 
Sociahsm  we  shall  have  the  disfranchisement 
of  parasites  because  there  will  be  none ;  we  shall 
not  have  to  undertake  the  absolutely  impossible 
task  of  dividing  the  service-giving  sheep  from 
the  parasitical  goats  for  the  purposes  of  the 
franchise.  Society  will  have  performed  that 
task  for  us  by  economic  processes. 


VI 
SOVIET  DEMOCRACY 

The  Soviet  system  has  not  been  sufficiently 
long  at  work,  or  at  work  under  normal  condi- 
tions, to  enable  us  to  see  very  clearly  where  the 
various  responsibilities  of  its  governing  and 
administrative  functions  rest.*  But  in  one  im- 
portant respect  the  point  is  clear.  It  is  a  pyra- 
mid of  local  governing  authorities  topped  by 
what  is,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  a  national 
executive;  whereas  the  Parliamentary  system 
is  directly  based  upon  national  opinion  and 
gives  validity  to  numerous  municipal  admin- 
istrative bodies. 

Again,  the  Russian  scheme  embodies  a  sound 


*  cf.   Ransome's  Six  Weeks  in  Russia  in  1919,  pp. 
82-84. 

60 


SOVIET    DEMOCRACY  61 

Socialist  idea.  Local  initiative  must  be  pre- 
served in  a  free  community.  But  I  do  not  be- 
lieve that  the  Russian  system  for  securing  this 
can  be  permanent.  It  is  the  scaffolding  of  a 
revolution,  not  an  architectural  structure  built 
according  to  laws  of  mechanical  strain  and 
pressure.  The  forces  of  political  mechanics  are 
pressing  upon  it,  will  make  it  bulge  here  and 
collapse  there,  will  necessitate  the  erection  of 
struts  and  buttresses,  and  before  it  settles  down 
to  an  equipoise  its  features  will  be  altered. 

In  proof  of  this  I  shall  apply  a  test  which 
most  Socialists  will  accept  as  a  good  test. 
What  is  the  power  of  the  people  over  the  Gov- 
ernment ?  I  shall  not  consider  temporary  rev- 
olutionary necessities,  but  permanent  features. 

The  local  Soviet  is  either  to  have  legislative 
power  or  it  is  not.  If  it  is,  there  are  to  be  a 
thousand  and  one  laws  on  the  same  subject 
running  in  the  Russian  Commonwealth.  If 
the  legislative  power  of  the  local  Soviets  is  to 
be  limited,  it  must  be  by  one  of  the  higher  Sov- 


62       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

iets.  In  any  event  there  is  legislative  authority 
to  be  exerted — such  as  fiscal  authority — ^which 
must  be  central ;  and  also  natural  wealth,  inter- 
local services  like  those  of  railways  and  rivers, 
national  policy  regarding  nationalisation,  in- 
dustrial conditions,  international  relations  must 
be  the  subjects  of  central  determination  and 
control.*  The  central  authorities  are  bound  to 
get  more  and  more  power  both  as  co-ordinators 
and  initiators;  the  All-Russia  Soviet  will  be- 
come a  Legislature  and  the  People's  Commis- 
saries an  Executive.  I  believe  that  even  in 
Russia  this  centralising  tendency  will  operate, 
though  that  will  be  much  less  true  in  Russia 
than,  say,  in  France  or  Great  Britain. 


*  Interesting  tales  are  told,  for  instance,  by  Mr. 
Rickman  of  how  interlocal  matters,  like  the  running 
of  railways,  are  settled  by  free  negotiation;  but 
whilst  one  envies  the  delightful  simplicity  of  the  peo- 
ple who  can  wait  till  this  is  done,  no  country  in 
Europe  save  Russia  could  do  such  things,  and  I  sus- 
pect that  only  Russia  in  the  virgin  pleasures  of  the 
revolution  can  do  them. 


SOVIET   DEMOCRACY  63 

The  Soviet  system  is,  therefore,  one  of  indi- 
rect democracy.  The  local  Soviets  are  in  di- 
rect contact  with  the  people,  but  they  are  not 
the  sovereign  authorities.  They  do  not  per- 
form the  grand  acts  of  government.  In  elect- 
ing them,  the  people  have  not  to  consider  the 
great  questions  of  national,  but  only  the 
smaller  questions  of  local,  affairs.  And  these 
questions  are  to  be  looked  at  from  a  trade 
union  point  of  view — perhaps  only  from  a 
workshop  point  of  view — a  point  of  view  which 
is  certainly  not  comprehensive  enough  for  com- 
munal action. 

When  the  primary  Soviet  is  elected,  it  pro- 
ceeds to  elect  representatives  to  higher  authori- 
ties, so  that  before  we  have  this  system  of  rep- 
resentatives electing  representatives  carried  on 
three  or  four  times,  we  reach  a  central  author- 
ity whose  representative  value  is  nil,  and  which 
has  only  a  very  remote  contact  with  the  mass 
of  the  people.  It  is,  in  reality,  a  dictatorship 
made  permanent. 


64       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

Is  this  a  system  of  government  of  which 
Sociahsts  can  approve?  Instead  of  making 
the  people  responsible  for  policy,  it  makes  the 
people's  representatives  and  the  representa- 
tives of  the  people's  representatives  rsponsible. 
I  may  put  the  argument  for  it  in  this  way: 
The  democratic  mass  can  only  come  to  wise  de- 
cisions on  matters  directly  affecting  its  own 
narrow  experience.  Let  the  reference  to  it  be 
concerned  only  with  that  experience.  The  per- 
sons who  are  chosen  to  do  the  work  of  local  ad- 
ministration, however,  may  be  assumed  to  be 
of  such  a  character  and  intelligence  that  they 
can  give  good  judgments  on  how,  in  stage 
after  stage  of  widening  horizons,  the  smaller 
interests  of  the  masses  can  be  amplified  and  co- 
ordinated into  national  and  international  pol- 
icy. Thus,  by  a  process  of  elections  by  which 
one  elected  body  chooses  the  one  above  it,  the 
judgment  of  an  electorate  of  increasing  intel- 
ligence is  obtained  as  the  basis  for  national  gov- 
ernment, and  each  higher  rank  of  Soviet  has 


SOVIET   DEMOCRACY  65 

power  to  deal  with  a  more  complicated  set  of 
political  relations  than  the  one  below  it. 

Without  doubt,  as  I  have  shown  in  a  pre- 
vious chapter,  the  mass  problem  is  one  that 
threatens  to  submerge  democracj^  as  a  form  of 
intelligent  government,  and  one  possible  way 
of  meeting  this  is  to  devise  grades  of  elections 
which  would  represent  the  various  strata  of 
political  intelligence  in  the  community.  I  have 
no  belief  in  the  working  of  any  such  expedient. 

It  is  a  mean  conception  of  democracy,  and 
in  the  end  will  result  in  bureaucracy  of  a  bad 
kind.  If  it  is  impossible  to  get  decisions  on 
the  great  questions  of  national  importance  from 
the  mass  of  electors,  if  it  is  impossible  to  create 
the  supreme  political  authority  of  the  nation 
directly  by  popular  votes,  then  let  us  frankly 
abandon  our  democratic  creeds,  for  if  revised 
in  this  respect  they  must  be  altered  in  every 
respect.  We  give  up  the  ideal  of  self-govern- 
ment. As  a  matter  of  fact  that  is  what  the 
Bolshevist  theory  leads  to*.    It  is  in  essence  and 


66       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

spirit  a  government  of  the  select.  The  view 
that  a  fooHsh  Society  can  be  controlled  and 
coerced  is  not  confined  to  emperors  and  mili- 
tary captains. 

Then,  this  conception  of  elections  is  purely 
artificial  and,  even  if  apparently  working,  it 
would  not  in  reality  be  working.  The  mass  of 
the  people  cannot  be  separated  from  national 
interests.  They  will  be  the  field  of  propa- 
ganda, agitation,  and  appeal,  and  they  will 
destroy  the  machine  which  works  so  cum- 
brously,  and  which  removes  their  real  rulers 
beyond  the  reach  of  their  arms.  Only  a  low 
state  of  political  interest  and  intelligence  will 
tolerate  this  system  of  government.  Were  it 
to  obtain  here,  every  Socialist  would  be  at  war 
with  it. 

The  Socialist  above  all  persons  is  keenly  in 
favour  of  local  life  and  autonomy.  He  must 
accept  the  risks  of  centralisation  with  their 
companion  risks  of  bureaucracy,  and  he  knows 
that  active  local  and  municipal  life  is  one  of 


SOVIET   DEMOCRACY  67 

his  greatest  safeguards,  not  only  of  a  mechani- 
cal kind,  but  because  they  are  necessary  for  the 
production  of  a  good  type  of  citizenship.  For 
that  very  reason  he  will  oppose  with  all  his 
strength  the  turning  of  these  bodies  of  local 
administration  into  electoral  colleges  for  his 
Parliament  or  National  Executive.  If  these 
local  bodies  are  endowed  with  this  power  they 
will  be  twisted  from  their  proper  functions  and 
become  the  playthings  of  partisan  organisa- 
tions, and  their  members  will  be  chosen  more 
for  the  vote  they  are  to  give  for  the  higher 
Soviet  than  for  the  main  work  they  are  to  do. 
Local  electors  either  are  capable  or  they  are 
not  capable  of  electing  national  representa- 
tives. If  they  are,  they  should  do  it  as  a  sepa- 
rate act  so  as  to  keep  election  to  local  bodies 
free  of  the  responsibility  for  more  national  rep- 
resentation; if  they  are  not,  a  better  system 
should  be  devised  than  that  which  imposes  the 
responsibility  upon  the  representatives  of  in- 
capables.    It  is  thus  not  only  essential  that  the 


68      PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

Socialist  Parliament  should  be  directly  respon- 
sible to  the  Socialist  democracy,  but  that  the 
Socialist  administrative  bodies  should  be 
elected  for  their  own  work. 

Finally,  the  system  is  one  which  leads  to  cor- 
rupt government.  It  may  be  that  under  So- 
cialism there  will  be  a  purity  of  public  life 
which  will  defy  temptation,  but  of  that  I  am 
not  so  sure,  and  I  am  not  willing  to  run  the 
risk  of  a  system  which,  without  any  special 
merits  of  its  own,  has,  wherever  it  has  been  tried 
— from  the  old  Metropolitan  Board  of  Works 
to  the  American  Senate  and  the  Legislative 
Councils  of  India — made  corrupt  election  easy. 
The  power  to  elect  to  important  and  coveted 
positions  in  the  State  enjoyed  by  a  small  hand- 
ful of  men  lays  them  open  to  all  kinds  of  evil 
temptation  to  which  they  almost  invariably 
must  succumb,  and  from  which  they  should  be 
guarded.  The  revolutionist  is  active  and  pure ; 
his  successor  is  not  necessarily  the  one  or  the 
other. 


SOVIET   DEMOCRACY  69 

In  a  sentence,  a  system  of  indirect  democ- 
racy is  a  form  of  reaction  and  not  of  progress. 
As  a  revolutionary  necessity  it  may  have  to  be 
adopted;  as  a  normal  procedure  it  ought  not 
to  be  countenanced. 


VII 

TERRITORIAL  v.  TRADE 
CONSTITUENCIES 

Amongst  other  reasons,  the  Soviet  system  is 
commended  because  it  places  government  on 
an  industrial  basis,  and  because  it  ends  what 
had  begun  to  be  condemned  before  the  Rus- 
sian Revolution,  the  geographical  basis  of  par- 
liamentary representation. 

As  I  have  already  said,  the  aim  of  Socialists 
is  to  place  society  on  an  industrial — e.g.,  service 
giving — basis,  and  when  that  is  done,  it  follows 
that  government  must  also  be  on  an  industrial 
basis.  In  so  far  as  the  Russian  franchise  has 
become,  and  is  to  remain  industrial,  however, 

70 


TERRITORIAL    v.    TRADE  71 

it  is  not,  as  I  have  already  pointed  out,  by  vir- 
tue of  any  decree  or  franchise  law,  but  by  the 
fact  that  owing  to  famine  and  revolution  the 
parasite  has  ceased  to  flourish  and  almost  even 
to  exist.  We  must  be  careful  not  to  assign  to 
one  cause  the  results  of  some  other  cause. 

The  geographical  area  as  opposed  to  the  in- 
dustrial section  as  a  unit  of  representation 
raises  a  different  question  which  Socialists  must 
consider  carefully. 

The  social  conflict  to-day  is  between  power- 
fully entrenched  Capital  and  Labour,  angered 
and  convinced  that  it  will  get  nothing,  either 
from  governments  or  from  employers,  unless  it 
is  in  a  position  to  enforce  its  demands.  Such 
a  state  of  things  may  be  very  unfortunate,  but 
governments  and  employers  are  themselves  to 
blame  for  it.  Revolutionary  movements  do 
not  spring  from  agitation,  however  amply  that 
may  have  added  to  their  volume.  They  begin 
with  the  stupidities  and  the  tyrannies  of  the 
powers   and  interests  which  they  have  ulti- 


72       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

mately  to  overthrow.  When  Labour  looks  to 
Parhament  as  the  instrument  by  which  its  con- 
flicts with  capitahsm  are  to  be  ended,  it  discov- 
ers that  Parhament  has  neither  the  knowledge 
nor  the  will  to  perform  a  task  which  Labour 
thinks  to  be  the  only  one  of  any  importance, 
and  one  of  the  chief  reasons  for  this  impotence 
is  that,  by  its  method  of  election,  Parliament 
is  removed  from  the  urgent  social  pressure  by 
which  Labour  is  surrounded.  Labour's  griev- 
ances before  they  reach  Westminster  have  lost 
their  urgency  and  become  almost  academic. 
The  problems  and  concerns  of  the  House  of 
Commons  are  quite  different  from  those  which 
are  the  daily  thoughts  of  ninety  per  cent  of 
the  people  of  the  country. 

How  far  is  this  the  result  of  geographical 
constituencies  and  electorates  based  upon  citi- 
zenship ?  Certainly  not  wholly.  For  the  prob- 
lems and  concerns  of  a  national  legislature, 
however  it  is  elected,  must  not  only  be  wider 
than  those  of  the  great  majority  of  the  indi- 


TERRITORIAL   v.    TRADE  73 

viduals  who  compose  the  community,  whether 
they  be  doctors  or  road-makers,  professors  or 
fish-wives,  but  when  it  fully  appreciates  the 
problems  and  concerns  of  its  constituencies, 
being  national  and  international  in  its  outlook 
and  responsibility,  it  must  see  those  things  not 
in  relation  to  the  people  in  whose  experiences 
they  originate,  but  to  the  whole  community  in 
which  they  are  contained.  The  miner  cannot 
settle  his  grievances  as  though  his  pit  was  the 
nation,  because  it  is  not.  What  he  experiences 
is  the  result  of  a  system  involving  a  much 
wider  and  more  complicated  relationship  than 
that  of  mine  owner  and  mine  worker,  and  the 
remedy  devised  for  what  is  evil  in  his  experi- 
ences influences  the  whole  of  the  economic  and 
industrial  system  to  which  they  belong.  There- 
fore, no  national  and  international  govern- 
ing authority  can  ever  regard  the  problems  of 
individuals  and  sections  in  the  same  simple  and 
direct  way  in  which  the  persons  immediately 
affected  regard  them. 


74       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

Another  cause  of  the  remoteness  of  Parlia- 
mentary interests  from  those  of  the  people  is 
the  lack  of  serious  consideration  which  the  elec- 
tors themselves  show  at  elections.  This  was 
shown  last  December  when  the  concerns  of 
the  electorate  had  nothing  to  do  with  their 
own  lives  or  the  life  of  the  nation.  People 
sow  tares  and  then  swear  because  the  harvest 
is  not  of  wheat.  Let  me  come  closer  to  this 
aspect  of  the  problem.  How  many  Labour 
selection  conferences  when  selecting  candi- 
dates consider  solely  ability  to  make  the  House 
of  Commons  effective  as  a  Labour  instrument  ? 

A  Parliament  composed  of  representatives 
of  constituencies  of  narrow  interests — whether 
of  trades  or  professions  * — will  be  an  inefficient 
Parliament,  the  characteristic  work  of  which 
will  be  patchwork — for  instance,  raising  wages 


*  Though  this  is  put  forward  as  a  new  and  up-to- 
date  idea,  it  is  not  that.  It  was  brought  forward  as 
a  reactionary  alternative  to  the  franchise  proposals 
at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  is  discussed 
by  James  Mill  in  his  article  on  Government. 


TERRITORIAL    v.    TRADE  75 

without  controlling  prices,  controlling  prices 
without  safeguarding  production,  giving  pro- 
tection without  securing  values ;  whereas  those 
who  have  a  clear  conception  of  what  the  gov- 
erning authority  in  an  industrial  community 
should  be,  must  seek  to  create  a  Parliament 
which  will  act  constructively  for  the  whole  com- 
munity. Society  is  greater  than  any  industry; 
every  industry  exists  only  in  relation  to  every 
other  industry;  the  complete  economic  unity 
must  always  be  considered. 

If  we  start  from  this  conception,  which  is  the 
only  one  which  Socialists  recognise,  certain 
things  follow. 

( 1 )  A  national  and  international  governing 
authority  cannot  be  constructed  on  a  sectional 
or  trade  idea,  cannot  be  a  mere  coming  to- 
gether of  guilds  or  unions  of  engineers,  miners, 
railwaymen,  dockers;  it  must  be  of  these,  but 
at  the  same  time  beyond  these.  Labour  in  poli- 
tics is  different  from  Labour  in  the  workshop, 
because  the  nation  is  not  an  accumulation  of  a 


76       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

set  of  separate  workshops  or  trades,  but  these 
organised  into  an  economic  and  social  unity.* 

(2)  Mere  trade  representatives  are,  there- 
fore, not  fully  equipped  Members  of  Parlia- 
ment, and  a  Parliament  elected  from  trades 
would  not  be  a  good  Parliament. 

(3)  The  territorial  area — and  that  means, 
in  effect,  the  constituency  based  on  the  idea 
of  citizenship  as  opposed  to  one  based  on  the 
idea  of  trade  or  profession — is,  therefore,  not 
to  be  discarded  in  the  election  of  a  national 
governing  authority. 

At  the  same  time,  the  faults  of  our  present 
system  are  obvious. 

(1)  Parliament,  though  elected  by  citizens, 
is  drawn  in  its  personnel  far  too  exclusively 
from  one  class  of  interest,  one  tradition  and 


*  According  to  a  competent  investigator  with 
strong  leanings  to  the  Left,  Miss  Eastman,  Bela  Kun 
had  to  abandon  the  idea  of  representation  by  work- 
shop or  industry  and  declare  for  a  "basis  of 
geographical  representation." — Liberator,  August, 
1919,  quoted  in  the  Forward,  August  23,  1919. 


TERRITORIAL    v.    TRADE  77 

experience,  and  one  section  of  the  community. 
Though  in  form  and  theory  democratic,  in  real- 
ity it  is  not  so.  It  is  moved  by  class  interests 
and  class  assumptions  just  as  much  as  if  it  were 
elected  by  a  stockbrokers'  guild,  a  guild  of 
city  merchants,  a  guild  of  landowners,  a  guild 
of  lawyers. 

(2)  The  actual  working  of  the  territorial 
system  of  constituencies  does  lend  itself  to  the 
dominance  of  rich  men  and  party  machines, 
and  does  tend  to  make  election  issues  unreal 
and  unsubstantial,  emotional  and  superficial, 
and  at  elections  to  blow  ofP  the  stage  those  mat- 
ters of  vital  living  importance  to  the  common 
toiler  who  earns  his  bread  by  the  sweat  of  his 
brow.  Holiday  politics  too  frequently,  and  in 
the  nature  of  the  case,  decide  elections,  and  the 
electors  resume,  after  the  election,  the  strug- 
gle with  adversity  which  they  could  have  mini- 
mised by  wise  voting,  but  which  was  not  in 
their  minds  when  they  filled  up  their  ballot 
papers. 


78       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

(3)  A  reform  in  the  governing  machine  is 
urgently  needed  by  which  the  industrial  life  of 
the  country  may  be  brought  into  more  direct 
and  certain  contact  with  its  political  life. 

The  argument  I  have  been  considering  is 
also  put  in  another  form.  It  is  said  that  a 
Parliament,  elected  as  our  House  of  Commons 
is,  must  take  the  consumers'  interests  too  ex- 
clusively into  account  and  must  sacrifice  the 
interests  of  the  producers.  Such  a  Parliament 
must  always  keep  the  working  of  the  economic 
machine  before  it.  If,  for  instance,  it  settles  a 
strike,  it  does  so  because  a  strike  is  a  great  in- 
convenience to  Society  as  a  going  concern,  not 
because  it  is  determined  to  do  justice  to  the 
strikers. 

This  seems  to  me  to  be  altogether  incon- 
clusive and  to  overlook  important  facts.  A 
capitalist  Parliament  will  do  this,  not  because 
it  thinks  of  the  consumer,  but  because  it  can 
only  think  in  terms  of  capitalist  convenience. 
But  no  one  who  has  had  experience  of  the  La- 


TERRITORIAL    v.    TRADE  79 

bour  Party  in  Parliament  can  believe  that  all 
Parliaments  must  function  in  this  way.  The 
Labour  Party  thinks  of  the  producer  first  of 
all,  and  it  asks  the  Government  to  interfere  in 
disputes  not  merely  to  settle  them,  but  to  settle 
them  equitably.  The  argument  amounts  to 
this:  that  from  our  experience  of  capitalist 
Parliaments  a  deduction  is  made  regarding  the 
nature  of  all  Parliaments. 

The  hard  and  fast  distinction  between  pro- 
ducers and  consumers  is  purely  academic  when 
used  in  this  way.  Every  day  in  his  life  the  in- 
dividual has  to  create  a  unity  between  his  in- 
terests as  a  producer  and  a  consumer,  and  that 
unity  not  only  must,  but  easily  can,  be  reflected 
in  the  policy  of  his  national  governing  author- 
ity. If,  however,  the  disunity  is  real  and 
cannot  be  dissolved  by  any  representative  as- 
sembly, the  expedients  proposed  to  meet  the 
difficulty  do  not  do  so.  For,  according  to  the 
argument,  an  assembly  of  producers  can  only 
consider  the  interests  of  producers  and  not  the 


80       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

interests  of  Society,  and  if  there  were  two 
Parliaments — a  producers'  one  and  a  consum- 
ers' one — the  dilemma  would  still  be  there 
because  no  joint  authority  could  synchronise 
both. 

For  Socialists  the  task  is,  therefore,  not  the 
destruction  of  the  territorial  and  citizen  con- 
stituency, but  its  supplementing  by  industrial 
constituencies.  Our  constitution  points  to  a 
simple  way  by  which  this  can  be  done.  A  Sec- 
ond Chamber  limited  in  its  political  powers  is 
one  of  our  inheritances  which  seems  to  be  dif- 
ficult to  throw  off,  but  at  present  its  member- 
ship is  confined  to  a  class  which  cannot  repre- 
sent the  nation.  If  a  system  of  election  based 
upon  citizenship — either  by  some  special 
method  of  election  like  Proportional  Repre- 
sentation or  larger  constituencies — were  to  be 
adopted  for  this  Second  Chamber,  the  danger 
to  free  democratic  government  would  be  great. 
Its  demands  for  power  equal  to  that  of  the 
other  Chamber  could  not  with  reason  be  re- 


TERRITORIAL    v.    TRADE  81 

sisted ;  it  would  be  a  source  of  delay  and  dead- 
lock which  would  bring  representative  institu- 
tions into  further  contempt ;  it  would  give  rise 
to  unsettlement  and  remove  from  the  country 
that  confidence  in  Parliament  which  is  so  nec- 
essary for  peaceful  evolutionary  progress. 
A  nominated  Second  Chamber,  though  from 
the  point  of  view  of  practical  politics  the  most 
convenient  form  of  such  a  body,  is  so  contrary 
to  democratic  assumptions  that  it  will  not  be 
adopted. 

Let  us,  then,  have  a  Second  Chamber  on  a 
Soviet  franchise.  The  same  people  might  vote 
for  both  Chambers,  but  their  frames  of  mind 
would  be  so  different  that  they  would  be  dif- 
ferent electorates.  Guilds  or  unions,  profes- 
sions and  trades,  classes  and  sections,  could 
elect  to  the  Second  Chamber  their  represen- 
tatives, just  as  the  Scottish  peers  now  do.  It 
would  enjoy  the  power  of  free  and  authorita- 
tive debate  (no  mean  power)  ;  it  could  initiate 
legislation,  and  it  could  amend  the  bills  of  the 


82       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

other  Chamber;  it  could  conduct  its  own  en- 
quiries, and  be  represented  on  Government 
and  Parhamentary  Commissions  and  Com- 
mittees. If  in  such  a  body  Labour  were  ad- 
equately represented,  and  there  were  a  strong 
Labour  Party  in  the  other  body,  the  real  needs 
and  concerns  of  the  nation  would  not  be  over- 
looked, but  would  be  felt  by  the  two  Houses 
with  a  directness  which  we  have  not  known 
hitherto  in  our  political  life.  The  House  of 
Lords  must  be  reconstituted;  the  Parliament 
Act  provides  for  that.  Within  a  very  short 
time  the  attention  of  Parliament  must  be 
turned  to  this  subject.  The  Labour  Party 
ought  at  once  to  begin  constructing  a  scheme 
by  which,  whilst  preserving  citizenship  as  the 
basis  of  democratic  representation,  the  direct 
representation  of  industrial  interests  may  be 
provided  for  and  a  place  found  for  represen- 
tatives who  in  their  thoughts,  work  and  inter- 
ests will  be  completely  free  of  the  trammels 
of  party  discipline,  and  to  whom  political  prob- 


TERRITORIAL    v.    TRADE  83 

lems  will  appear  in  a  colour  and  with  a  sim- 
plicity which  they  cannot  assume  to  those  im- 
mersed in  the  more  complicated  affairs  of  the 
national  and  international  State. 


VIII 

PARLIAMENT 

To  the  man  who  responds  day  bj^  day  to 
the  call  of  the  factory  whistle,  Parliament  too 
often  appears  to  be  an  ineffective  thin^.  And 
when  the  man  is  intelligent  and  is  actively  in- 
terested in  his  own  affairs,  the  ineffectiveness 
is  so  great  that  he  ceases  to  believe  in  Parlia- 
ment altogether,  pronounces  a  plague  upon 
all  political  parties  and  leaders,  and  lets  the 
world  drift  so  far  as  political  action  is  con- 
cerned. As  a  rule,  such  a  man  becomes  a  be- 
liever in  what  is  called  "Direct  Action,"  or  be- 
comes a  supporter  of  the  charitable  patronage 
of  Tory  democracy  and  a  backer  of  those  pol- 

84 


PARLIAMENT  85 

iticians  of  social  manners  who  understand  his 
weakness  and  who  pander  to  them.  He  be- 
comes blase.  When  one  applies  a  microscope 
to  them  one  sees  alarming  likenesses  between 
the  mental  make-up  of  the  chattering  Cock- 
ney who  votes  for  a  scoundrel  of  fair  words 
and  "understanding,"  and  the  revolutionary 
of  set  narrow  ideas  who  in  times  of  peace  pro- 
claims a  1792  September. 

Before  we  condemn  Parliament  and  politi- 
cal action  we  must  put  it  in  the  dock,  and  pro- 
nounce sentence  upon  it  after  a  patient  exam- 
ination of  its  faults;  and  that  is  what  I  pro- 
pose to  do  in  this  chapter,  with  a  brevity  con- 
sistent with  the  plan  of  this  book. 

Parliament  itself  is  a  machine  of  govern- 
ment, and  it  has  been  worked  hitherto  by  one 
section  of  the  community.  Labour  has  voted, 
but  has  not  run  the  machine.  Whatever  the 
change  in  electorate  may  have  been,  the 
"governing  classes"  have  up  to  now  remained 
pretty  much  the  same.    Thej^  have  had  to  keep 


86       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

their  eye  upon  the  majorities  they  had  to  se- 
cure, but  as  they  came  to  understand  them, 
they  found  tliat  these  majorities  were  moved 
by  no  definite  idea  and  sought  no  definite 
goal.  They  lived  from  hand  to  mouth.  They 
could  be  stirred  into  passion  by  things  which 
were  trival,  they  could  be  easily  deceived,  they 
were  fond  of  dramatic  representations  and 
were  very  credulous,  mental  habits  and  the 
world  as  they  found  it  held  them  in  bondage, 
they  were  absolutely  tame,  very  obedient,  and 
verj^  suspicious  of  new  leaders  and  willing  to 
believe  anything  against  them.  The  danger  of 
thinking  things  out,  of  reflecting  upon  state- 
ments so  as  to  come  to  independent  conclusions, 
did  not  exist.  The  masses  accepted  both  state- 
ments and  conclusions  ready-made  for  them, 
and  did  not  seem  to  be  able  to  reason  as  to 
whether  the  one  and  the  other  hung  together 
or  did  not.  They  saw  them  both  in  front  of 
them,  and  they  accepted  them  for  reality  just 
as  they  did  a  stone  on  their  path.    The  "govern- 


PARLIAMENT  J57 

ing  classes"  have  striven  to  keep  things  so. 
They  have  discovered  that  the  effect  of  popu- 
lar education  was  not  to  make  people  intellec- 
tually vigorous,  but  to  make  them  slaves  of 
what  thej''  read,  and  that  the  effect  of  having 
the  vote  was  not  to  make  them  consider  what 
they  would  do  with  it,  but  to  make  them  enjoy 
an  election.  So  the  democratic  reforms  of  the 
past  century  have  been  largely  changes  in 
forms — like  an  extended  franchise — necessary 
undoubtedly,  but,  in  the  nature  of  things,  the 
power  given  could  be  abused,  used,  or  played 
with.  Thus,  surrounded  by  democratic  re- 
forms, the  "governing  classes"  have  main- 
tained their  authority  and  have  used  democ- 
racy to  maintain  it. 

Therefore,  at  the  very  outset,  in  expressing 
disappointment  with  the  results  of  Parlia- 
mentary government,  we  must  begin  by  ad- 
mitting that  the  first  point  to  be  made  against 
it  belongs  not  to  itself,  but  to  the  masses. 
They  have  not  been  intelligent  enough  to  use 


88       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

it.  Now,  nothing  can  take  the  place  of  intel- 
hgence.  We  can  have  a  revolution  by  force, 
we  can  have  a  temporarj^  dictatorship  of  the 
intelligent  democracy,  but  continued  progress 
must  before  long  come  back  to  its  source  in 
the  minds  of  the  masses.  We  can  substitute 
new  forms  of  government  for  present  ones, 
but  unless  the  people  become  "the  governing 
classes"  in  fact  as  well  as  in  name,  the  rotten 
foundation  will  show  itself  by  cracks  in  the 
superstructure.  Furthermore,  we  can  by  an 
interesting  academic  analysis  show  how  com- 
plicated is  modern  Society,  how  difficult  it  is 
to  create  one  sovereign  authorit}^  in  the  State 
effectively  claiming  both  a  political  and  an 
economic  allegiance,  but  none  of  that,  nor  all 
of  it  put  together,  helps  us  to  get  away  from 
the  difficulty  which  the  absence  of  wisdom  in 
the  use  of  power  creates.  Wliere  there  is  no 
intelligence  there  will  be  no  unity.  Where 
there  is  no  comprehension  of  unity  and  no  con- 
ception of  how  political  action  can  secure  it, 


PARLIAMENT  89 

a  mere  change  of  systems  of  government  is  like 
a  change  in  style  of  architecture  with- 
out discarding  the  rotten  bricks  which  made 
the  previous  building  uninhabitable.  Social- 
ists, revolutionary  or  evolutionary,  can  never 
get  away  from  this.  It  dogs  them  like  sha- 
dows ;  it  dooms  all  their  eff erts  and  schemes  to 
futility  until  they  change  it.  If  the  people  do 
not  understand  Parliament,  better  govern- 
ment is  not  secured  by  splitting  up  its  func- 
tions. If  the  people  cannot  construct  Social- 
ism in  their  minds  they  cannot  build  it  into 
their  institutions. 

A  mere  class  consciousness  will  not  guard 
the  nation  against  this  shortcoming,  because, 
however  useful  it  may  be  to  imbue  the  workers 
with  a  sense  of  their  class  importance  and  of 
their  present  class  subordination,  and  however 
clear  one  may  make  the  facts  of  the  existing 
class  struggle,  the  political  value  of  this  is 
slight.  The  shortcoming  is  intellectual  and 
moral.      The   self-respect   and   independence 


90       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

which  are  to  make  the  workers  into  a  great 
political  power  cannot  be  produced  from  such 
thoughts  as  that,  say,  "Local  veto  maintains 
the  private  cellars  of  the  rich  whilst  it  closes 
the  pubs  of  the  poor."  Too  much  Socialist 
propaganda  has  been  upon  these  unsubstan- 
tial lines,  and  the  failure  of  that  kind  of  prop- 
aganda was  shown  when  the  war  came  and 
proved  that  the  most  accomplished  talkers  of 
brave  words  were  the  most  ill-prepared  for 
playing  their  part  in  the  struggle,  accepted 
the  most  empty  of  titles,  performed  with  a 
sense  of  gratitude  and  honour  the  most  menial 
of  jobs,  and  fulfilled  with  an  exemplary  faith- 
fulness missions  hostile  to  Labour. 

This  came  at  the  end  of  a  period  of  peace- 
ful development  when  every  one  of  us  in  Par- 
liament had  incurred  the  suspicion  of  oppor- 
tunism, and  when  it  was  true  that  certain 
working-class  leaders  were  losing  their  class 
minds  and  becoming  petty  bourgeoisie.  What 
happened    soon    after   the    outbreak    of   wai* 


PARLIAMENT  91 

seemed  to  many  to  be  the  natural  evolution  of 
this  opportunism  and  of  the  bourgeois  spirit, 
and  political  action  suffered  in  reputation  ac- 
cordingly. 

This  opens  up  another  aspect  of  the  prob- 
lem: the  Labour  Party  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. The  "governing  class"  is  educated  for 
its  business.  It  comes  into  public  life  trained 
in  the  habits  of  team  action.  One  has  only  to 
hear  the  Tory  Party  cheer  in  the  House  of 
Commons  to  know  its  strength  as  a  dominat- 
ing party.  It  has  the  same  unity  of  spirit  as 
a  pack  of  hounds  after  a  fox.  It  likes  the 
game.  The  privileges  it  has  enjoyed  for  many 
generations  have  enabled  it  to  acquire  the 
habits  which  secure  the  enjoyment.  In  Par- 
liament, as  in  its  mansions,  it  is  at  home.  The 
newcomers  are  strangers.  They  have  had  no 
practice  in  the  game.  They  are  rent  and  weak- 
ened by  hesitancy  and  jealousy,  and  they  can- 
not keep  these  vices  in  subjection  as  our  ruling 
classes   do.     The   political   education   of  the 


92       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

workers  must  not,  therefore,  be  confined  to 
the  education  of  electors,  but  must  extend  to 
that  of  representatives.  The  Parhamentary 
machine  must  not  only  be  worked  with  know- 
ledge, but  with  spirit.  These  powers  are  not 
automatically  acquired  by  people  when  they 
are  elected,  but  come  by  practice.  Only  when 
a  class  feels  that  it  is  triumphing  can  it  pro- 
duce a  party  with  a  triumphing  spirit.  The 
personality  of  members  helps,  of  course,  and  I 
doubt  if  the  Labour  Party  has  yet  discovered 
the  best  way  of  selecting  candidates.  Until 
selection  conferences  are  wise  enough  to  search 
for  certain  qualities  rather  than  accept  men  of 
a  certain  status  in  local  bodies  or  in  organisa- 
tions whose  method  of  work  and  training  are 
not  those  of  the  House  of  Commons,  the  gov- 
erning machinery  will  not  be  captured  from 
the  inside. 

This  fault  in  Parliament  is  again  not  of  Par- 
liament, but  of  Labour  outside.  If  it  were 
properly  met  it  would  go  a  long  way  to  satisfy 


PARLIAMENT  93 

in  a  permanent  way  all  that  more  revolutionary 
methods — like  the  domination  of  the  minority 
— are  supposed  to  satisfy  in  a  temporary  way. 
For  the  mass  is  always  dominated  by  a  minor- 
ity— a  minority  of  force,  a  minority  of  reason, 
a  minority  of  the  accepted  order.  A  minority 
of  force  can  appear  to  do  things  during  a  revo- 
lution, but  it  creates  a  counter-revolution  which 
is  serious  in  proportion  to  the  thoroughness 
with  which  the  minority  proposes  to  do  its 
work,  and  if  it  is  to  make  permanent  contribu- 
tions to  progress,  it  must  quickly  find  sanction 
in  popular  support.  Though  a  minority  of 
political  intelligence  making  its  voice  heard 
and  its  will  felt  through  efficient  representa- 
tives may  for  a  time  appear  to  be  proceeding  at 
a  tortoise  pace,  compared  with  a  revolutionary 
minority  of  dictators,  it  will  pass  the  fitful 
energies  of  the  hare,  get  to  the  far  goal  first, 
and  make  itself  secure  in  the  possession  of  its 
gains. 

The  Parliamentary  method  must  always  de- 


94       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

pend  for  its  success  on  average,  not  on  special, 
intelligence  or  energy.  It  provokes  the  spe- 
cially keen  people  by  its  cumber someness,  but 
it  deals  with  Society  and  the  community,  and 
not  with  enlightened  coteries  or  associations. 
Not  what  a  Socialist  meeting  declares  itself 
anxious  to  do,  but  what  the  community  is  pre- 
pared to  do,  is  the  opportunity  which  the  poli- 
tician has.  Parliament  deals  with  the  organic 
change  of  Society,  not  with  satisfying  the  wis- 
dom of  individual  minds.  A  Socialist  branch 
is  a  totally  different  thing  from  the  community 
in  which  it  exists.  Were  it  not  so,  it  would  not 
be  a  Socialist  branch.  But  our  friends  are  apt 
to  forget  this  sometimes  in  criticising  Parlia- 
mentary methods.  And  nothing  will  ever 
change  that.  A  revolution  only  masks  it. 
Nothing  will  ever  relieve  the  Socialist  of  the 
burden  of  making  Socialists,  or  of  persuading 
the  community  that  his  views  of  affairs  are 
right. 

If  any  scheme  of  government  could  be  de- 


PARLIAMENT  95 

vised  to  avoid  these  encumbrances  which  beset 
ParHaments  I  would  support  it.  I  have  not 
seen  it,  however.  The  encumbrances  must  just 
be  removed.  Short  cuts  and  revolutionary 
jumps  may  be  possible  once  in  a  century,  but 
when  these  conditions  arise  the  most  advantage 
can  be  taken  of  them  only  when  the  masses  are 
prepared  to  allow  it,  when  the  politician  leads 
the  attack  through  Parliament  in  co-operation 
with  the  other  forces  available,  and  when  the 
counter-revolution  can  be  repelled  not  by  arms 
and  barricades,  but  by  reason  and  the  settled 
convictions  of  the  people. 

In  other  words,  Parliament  being  the  will  of 
the  people  embodied  in  an  institution,  Social- 
ists must  work  to  get  the  right  will  and  an  in- 
telligent will,  and  to  provide  the  most  intimate 
touch  between  the  two.  They  are  handling  a 
problem  of  the  mass  mind,  and  no  trick  or  kick 
will  enable  them  to  avoid  that  problem.  When 
a  child  gets  impatient  with  work  which  it  is 
doing  badly,  or  of  which  it  has  got  tired,  it 


96       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

smashes  it  to  smithereens  and  feels  reheved, 
but  that  does  not  enable  it  to  accomplish  what 
it  set  out  to  do.  A  policy  of  such  relief  is 
specially  bad  in  public  affairs.  The  gates  of 
heaven  are  not  to  be  taken  by  force,  nor  are 
the  foundations  of  a  new  world  to  be  laid  in 
that  way.  I  know  that  all  the  emotions  of  to- 
day are  impatient  with  such  views.  Revolu- 
tion and  the  mind  of  revolution  are  the  pro- 
geny of  all  wars.  The  reaction  would  shoot  us 
for  safety ;  some  of  us  would  shoot  the  reaction 
for  righteousness.  The  tidal  waves  which  fol- 
low the  earthquake  are  swishing  and  swilling 
everywhere.  But  we  must  not  launch  our  gal- 
leons, built  to  carry  us  on  high  adventure  and 
exploration,  on  a  tidal  wave. 

Therefore,  instead  of  harbourmg  designs  to 
destroy  representative  government  or  to  con- 
struct it  on  some  basis  other  than  democratic. 
Socialists  should  consider  how  to  perfect  the 
system.  I  have  already  made  a  suggestion  how 
to  improve  the  Second  Chamber,  on  the  as- 


PARLIAMENT  97 

sumption  that  it  is  to  exist,  but  the  House  of 
Commons  itself  needs  to  be  reformed,  and  I 
give  in  an  appendix  some  proposals,  worked 
out  in  detail,  for  making  Parliamentary  ma- 
chinery more  efficient. 

As  a  method  of  increasing  Parliamentary  ef- 
ficiency I  put  more  and  more  value  upon  devo- 
lution. The  case  for  an  Irish  Parliament  is 
complete.  The  matter  does  not  end  there,  how- 
ever. The  overwhelming  influence  of  England 
on  Scottish  and  Welsh  affairs  is  destroying  the 
native  political  instincts  of  these  nations.  It 
is  a  profound  calamity  that  our  "predominant 
partner"  possesses  political  instincts  and  edu- 
cational equipment  of  a  much  lower  order  than 
those  of  the  two  nations  joined  to  it.  Their 
capabilities  are  thus  lost,  are  slowly  being 
crushed  out  and  stifled,  and  the  Imperial  Par- 
liament comes  nearer  to  the  political  intelli- 
gence of  Sussex  and  Surrey,  Rutland  and 
Kent,  than  to  the  constituencies  of  the  smaller 
nationalities  where  people  are  accustomed  to 


98       PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

think  independently  and  where  pohtical  affairs 
are  followed  with  keen  intelligence.  More- 
over, Parliamentary  action  is  deprived  of  the 
support  which  would  be  given  to  it  by  the  vig- 
orous examples  of  legislation  and  administra- 
tion which  would  come  from  beyond  the  Tweed 
and  Severn. 

The  real  weakness  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, however,  comes  from  the  way  in  which 
it  is  elected.  So  long  as  enormous  sums  of 
money  can  be  legally  spent  in  elections,  so  long 
as  Members  of  Parliament  are  regarded  as 
dispensers  of  charity  in  their  constituencies, 
the  men  who  in  singleness  of  interest  and  pur- 
pose wish  to  serve  the  community  will  be  se- 
verely handicapped.  Further  legislation  can 
deal  with  this.  And  yet,  I  am  anxious  that 
there  should  be  no  doubt  left  as  to  the  real  evil. 
There  are  men  in  the  House  of  Commons  to- 
day who  cannot  be  legally  disqualified  from 
sitting,  but  whose  connection  with  any  con- 
stituency is  disgraceful  to  that  constituency. 


PARLIAMENT  99 

They  have  been  elected,  however.  Until  the 
political  education  of  the  constituencies  is  bet- 
ter, we  have  to  console  ourselves  with  the  hard 
truth  that  is  in  the  saying :  You  cannot  make  a 
silk  purse  out  of  a  sow's  ear. 

England  itself  is,  however,  composite  and 
great  gulfs  separate  district  from  district.  The 
North-East  Coast,  to  take  but  one  example,  is 
poles  asunder  from  the  Home  Counties,  and 
though  they  share  a  common  citizenship,  the 
use  they  would  make  of  it  is  very  different.  I 
know  that  these  differences  cannot  be  pushed 
too  far,  but  they  have  to  be  recognised  more 
than  they  have  been.  I  know  that  Yorkshire 
cannot  have  a  tariff  of  its  own,  or  Durham 
mining  legislation  all  to  itself  as  the  reward  of 
its  intelligence;  but  there  are  many  powers 
which  Yorkshire  and  Durham  could  exercise 
without  interference  from  Whitehall,  and  if 
greater  districts  than  counties  arranged  in  nat- 
ural groups  determined  by  old  historical  dif- 
ferences and  more  modern  economic  ones  were 


100     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

created  with  powers  that  made  then*  Councils 
really  important,  new  life  and  reality  would  be 
infused  into  politics.  The  remoteness  of  the 
Imperial  Parliament  from  the  life  of  the  peo- 
ple is  the  result  of  the  State  being  too  compli- 
cated for  political  precision.  When  we  were 
ruled  by  landlords  and  then  by  capitalists,  the 
State  was  simply  the  interest  of  the  landed 
autocracy  and  the  commercial  plutocracy.  It 
never  could  get  too  complicated.  But  so  soon 
as  it  became  a  democracy,  every  variety  in  lo- 
cality, every  remaining  trace  of  racial  differ- 
ence, every  special  feature  of  industrial  differ- 
ence, every  variation  in  the  tone  of  public  opin- 
ion and  the  robustness  of  the  minds  of  the  peo- 
ple came  into  play,  and  in  the  large  orchestra 
at  Westminster  they  did  not  balance  and  did 
not  harmonise.  Politics  lost  touch  with  life. 
Pledges  given  to  constituencies  could  not  be 
fulfilled.  The  representative  assembly  could 
not  be  moved  to  interest  itself  in  the  things 
which  interested  great  groups  of  people;  elec- 


PARLIAMENT  101 

tions  therefore  were  not  the  occasion  for  a  se- 
rious survey  of  politics  and  the  issue  of 
mandates  upon  which  representatives  could 
work  for  a  term  of  office,  were  but  the  occasion 
for  partisan  orgies.  The  more  ineffective  Par- 
liament is,  the  stronger  partisanship  becomes; 
the  stronger  partisanship  is,  the  more  mediocre 
become  candidates.  Thus,  Parliament  dies 
like  a  plant  without  soil  in  an  uninvigorating 
atmosphere. 

The  sub-division  of  power  that  is  required 
is  not  a  vertical  one  on  the  lines  of  trades,  for 
that  will  make  things  worse  and  make  Parlia- 
ment more  useless  and  inefficient,  but  one  which 
will  strengthen  local  autonomy,  bring  politics 
back  into  touch  with  life,  make  the  representa- 
tive system  representative  on  matters  in  which 
groups  of  people  take  an  interest,  encourage 
the  national,  racial,  and  district  characteristics 
to  develop  themselves  in  harmony  with  each 
other,  promote  unity  not  by  uniformity  but  by 
the  co-operation  of  unlikes,  and  by  enlivening 


102     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

the  interests  of  the  people  in  the  affairs  in 
which  they  immediately  live,  give  them  a  ca- 
pacity to  come  to  sound  judgment  on  their 
more  remote  and  general  concerns.  The  prob- 
lem we  have  to  solve  is  how  to  restore  reality 
to  politics,  how  to  make  Parliament  as  real  to 
the  people  as  it  was  to  the  landlords  when  it 
was  enabling  them  to  enclose  commons  and 
keep  up  rents,  and  as  it  was  to  the  capitalists 
when  it  gave  them  Free  Trade  and  Peace,  Re- 
trenchment, and  Reform.  One  way  is  to  make 
it  a  trade  committee,  but  therein  lies  smallness, 
narrowness,  sectionalism,  which  will  in  the  end 
bring  democracy  to  wreck.  The  other  way  is 
that  which  I  suggest,  which,  by  beginning  with 
the  home  and  the  district,  will  awaken  and  in- 
struct the  interests  upon  which  the  power  of 
governing  democracy  must  be  founded. 


IX 

"DIRECT  ACTION" 

We  must  not,  in  sticking  to  our  belief  in 
political  action,  fall  into  the  error  of  assuming 
that  the  Parliamentary  aspect  of  that  action  is 
its  sole  aspect,  and  of  regarding  any  particular 
Parliament  and  every  Parliamentary  decision 
as  something  that  has  to  be  accepted  without 
popular  protest.  That  is  to  go  back  to  Hob- 
bes,  in  whose  time  the  rise  of  the  Parlia- 
mentary Party  appeared  to  break  up  na- 
tional unity  and  introduce  confusion  into 
national  sovereignty.  Hobbes  could  see  safety 
and  peace  only  in  a  government  with  powers 
assigned  to  it  after  the  manner  of  this  decla- 

103 


104     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION^ 

ration:  "I  authorise  and  give  up  my  right  of 
governing  myself  to  this  man,  or  this  assembly 
of  men,  on  this  condition,  that  thou  give  up 
thy  right  to  him,  and  authorise  all  his  actions 
in  like  manner."  This  contract,  which  was  the 
basis  of  Hobbes'  Leviathan  State,  is  sup- 
posed by  some  people  to  be  the  basis  of 
the  modern  democratic  State  governed  by 
Parliaments. 

The  Parliamentary  Party  was  victorious, 
and  the  confusion  which  Hobbes  thought  ought 
to  follow  did  not  follow.  A  sovereign  author- 
ity of  one  will  which  no  power  could  success- 
fully challenge  was  found  not  to  be  necessary 
for  government.  Since  then  we  have  had  Par- 
liamentary sovereignty  based  upon  the  will  of 
the  electors,  rather  than  personal  sovereignty 
based  upon  the  will  of  a  monarch.  Parliamen- 
tary sovereignty  was  a  step  towards  liberty. 
But  now  we  have  by  experience  found  that 
Parliament  can  be  manipulated,  that  election 
issues  can  be  fraudulent,  that  executives  can 


''DIRECT    ACTION''  105 

use  Parliament  for  purposes  that  are  not  in 
accord  with  the  will  of  the  people,  that  Cabi- 
nets can  coerce  Parliament,  and  that  the 
further  removed  from  the  electors  the  govern- 
ing power  is  the  more  self-willed  becomes  that 
power.  So  we  have  a  movement  intended  to 
impose  limitations  upon  the  absoluteness  of 
Parliamentary  sovereignty  by  bringing  the 
"direct  action"  of  the  people  into  play,  just  as 
the  representative  action  of  Parliament  was  to 
be  brought  into  play  to  limit  monarchic  sover- 
eignty. The  intention  is  not  to  take  sover- 
eignty from  Parliament,  but  to  limit  its  liberty 
to  abuse  its  sovereignty;  it  is  to  convert  the 
masses  from  an  attitude  of  passivity  between 
elections  to  one  of  activity  when  that  is  neces- 
sary. There  is  nothing  "unconstitutional"  in 
this — nothing  that  does  violence  to  any  intelli- 
gent conception  of  Parliamentary  government. 
Rather,  to  keep  public  opinion  active  during 
the  life  of  a  Parliament  is  to  complete  the 
theory  of  government  upon  which  Parliament 


106     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

as  an  institution  rests,  and  to  give  life  to  the 
representative  system. 

Another  section  of  Parhamentary  critics  cut 
deeper  than  that,  however.  Their  position  is 
something  as  follows :  The  sovereign  State  can- 
not, in  the  nature  of  things,  control  the  whole 
of  man's  actions,  or  cover  the  whole  of  his  life. 
At  one  time  an  attempt  was  made  to  make  re- 
ligion a  matter  of  State  concern,  and  religious 
conformity  was  regarded  as  essential  to  State 
unity.  No  bishop,  no  king ;  no  king,  no  State ! 
That  has  gone.  Now,  a  new  set  of  obligations 
has  grown  up  which  further  subdivides  politi- 
cal sovereignty.  The  industrial  State  has  be- 
come distinct  from  the  political  State.  The 
individual  as  a  workman  is  a  member  of  a 
State  apart  from  the  State  of  which  he  is  a 
member  as  a  citizen.  I  have  already  dealt  with 
this  argument  in  another  connection,  and  little 
is  required  to  supplement  what  I  have  written. 
The  political  State  cannot  be  divided  from  the 
industrial  State.    It  was  not  so  under  Capital- 


"DIRECT    ACTION"  107 

ism,  it  cannot  be  so  under  Socialism.  When 
the  time  comes,  as  it  now  has,  for  Labour  to 
enter  into  final  political  conflict  with  the  eco- 
nomic system  of  Capitalism,  the  two  aspects 
of  the  State  come  into  conflict  with  each  other, 
because  the  Government  of  Labour — that  is 
its  Parliament — is  fundamentally  antagonistic 
to  the  Government  of  Capitalism.  But  it  is 
not  only  Labour  as  producer,  but  Labour  as 
citizen,  that  is  in  opposition  to  the  capitalistic 
State,  and  those  who,  making  academic  distinc- 
tions between  the  two  aspects  of  Labour's  ex- 
perience and  activity  in  the  State,  wish  to  di- 
vide them  in  the  organisation  of  the  State,  so 
far  from  being  progressive,  are  really  reaction- 
ary, and  are  weakening  Labour's  strength  and 
dividing  Labour's  government. 

The  line  to  be  drawn  between  obedience  to 
the  Government  and  individual  sense  of  right 
and  wrong  is  indeflnite,  is  historical  and  not 
metaphysical,  and  cannot  be  fixed  by  principle 
arising  out  of  the  nature  of  government  and 


108     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

the  nature  of  man.  The  conflict  between  the 
two  never  raises  a  simple  but  always  a  compli- 
cated problem  in  which  circumstance  is  an  im- 
portant element.  For  instance,  the  spread  of 
Christianity  undoubtedly  contributed  to  the 
downfall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  the  reason 
being  that  the  foundations  of  that  Empire  were 
bad.  At  the  time,  the  rulers  of  the  Empire, 
who  took  the  same  standpoint  as  our  own  Bish- 
ops and  Archbishops  have  recently  taken 
regarding  Conscientious  Objectors,  were  jus- 
tified in  persecuting  Christians.  They  put  po- 
litical obligation,  which  they  understood,  before 
moral  obligation,  which  they  did  not  under- 
stand. To  this  extent  Diocletian,  Julian,  and 
the  Bishops  stand  on  precisely  the  same  posi- 
tion. But  such  an  opposition  is.  not  in  the 
nature  of  government,  but  in  the  lack  of  human 
wisdom.  A  man  of  insight  could  have  seen 
that  the  Christian  political  ethic  was  more  pow- 
erful than  the  Imperial  political  ethic,  and  that 
the  Empire  could  not  last.     So  a  man  of  in- 


"DIRECT    ACTION''  109 

sight  ought  to  see  to-day  that  the  conflict 
between  the  capitaKst  State  and  the  Labour 
State  is  a  conflict  between  a  weak  ethic  and  a 
strong  one,  between  something  which  has  ful- 
fifled  its  purpose  and  something  destined  to 
take  its  place.  In  that  conflict  the  inadequacy 
of  the  old  to  satisfy  the  needs  of  the  new  must 
be  worked  out  in  detail,  and  so  it  comes  to  be 
pointed  out  that  the  capitalist  political  State 
cannot  satisfy  the  requirements  of  the  Labour 
State  in  its  economic  aspects.  But  from  that 
it  is  not  legitimate  to  argue  that  the  Labour 
political  State  cannot  satisfy  its  own  economic 
requirements.  All  that  is  necessary  is  that  we 
must  recognise  the  industrial  aspects  of  the 
Labour  State.  We  must  be  aware  of  the  inter- 
ests and  the  aspects  of  Labour  experience 
which  compose  the  unity  of  government  which 
we  seek.  We  must  be  sure  that  they  are  things 
that  can  be  united,  and  not  make  the  mistake 
of  the  ecclesiastical  politicians  and  the  political 
ecclesiastics.     Then  we  must   erect   the   po- 


110     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

litical  machinery  which  will  embody  the  unity. 
This  argument  must  be  emphasised  and 
stated  from  many  points  of  view.  The  essen- 
tial fact  that  must  be  grasped,  however,  is  this. 
Industrial  organisation  must  not  be  a  govern- 
ment independent  of  the  political  government. 
It  must  not  be  an  outside  check  or  menace.  It 
must  be  part  of  the  working  system.  That  is 
a  translation  into  constitutional  theories  of  the 
policy  of  the  Independent  Labour  Party  when 
it  worked  for  a  Labour  Party  composed  of 
Trade  Unions  and  Socialist  Societies.  With 
some  of  the  statements  of  those  who  oppose 
"Direct  Action"  to-day,  I  am  in  profound  dis- 
agreement, and  it  is  necessary  that  I  should 
make  that  quite  clear.  They  are  false  in  their 
conception  of  democracy  and  feeble  in  their 
conception  of  Parliament.  They  belong  to 
ideas  of  political  servitude  which  are  anti- 
quated and  reactionary;  they  are  nothing  but 
the  evidence  of  the  blight  of  political  respec- 
tability upon  the  democratic  spirit.    If  we  ap- 


"DIRECT    ACTION''  111 

pear  to  agree  on  conclusions,  we  disagree  upon 
reasons.  I  reject  the  argument  that  direct  ac- 
tion is  "unconstitutional" — whatever  that  may 
mean;  I  deny  that  it  is  illegitimate;  I  do  not 
believe  that  it  is  inconsistent  with  democratic 
Parliamentary  government;  I  offer  no  hospi- 
tality to  the  views  of  a  Leviathan  State 
whether  based  upon  the  will  of  a  monarch  or 
that  of  a  Parliamentary  majority. 

"Direct  action,"  if  it  be  regarded  as  the  be- 
ginning of  a  further  division  of  the  democratic 
political  State,  does  not  seem  to  me  to  be  in 
accordance  with  Socialist  conceptions.  Re- 
garded as  one  of  the  activities  of  the  industrial 
democracy  engaged  in  controlling  the  actions 
of  a  capitalist  State,  it  must  be  accepted  as  a 
legitimate  form  of  activity,  and  discussion  re- 
garding its  value  must  be  proceeded  with.*    It 


*  I  cannot  resist  the  temptation  of  reminding  my 
readers  that  when  "direct  action"  was  taken  during 
the  war  in  the  interests  of  capitalism,  no  protest  was 
uttered  but  it  was  welcomed,  applauded,  and  paid  for 


112     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

is  thus  a  problem  in  practicality,  not  one  in 
legitimacy. 

The  question  is,  Who  is  to  decide  the  neces- 
sity for  action?  That  depends  on  the  circum- 
stances of  the  case.  Such  action  must  always 
be  very  rare,  because  the  demand  for  it  can 
only  arise  when  governors  have  created  revolu- 
tionary conditions  by  their  stupidities  or  op- 
pressions ;  freedom  prevents  its  being  used  for 
trivial  grievances  and  forbids  its  becoming  a 
regular  feature  of  democratic  activity.  The 
problem  which  this  raises  is  approached  by  two 
different  types  of  mind.  The  one  is  always 
looking  for  paper  or  mechanical  safeguards; 
the  other,  knowing  that  there  never  can  be  such 
safeguards,  looks  to  those  which  liberty,  en- 
joyed under  democratic  conditions,  always  af- 


by  capitalist  organs  and  aristocratic  subscribers. 
Should  ever  a  Labour  Revolutionary  Tribunal  be  set 
up  in  this  country,  these  people  will  be  sentenced  by 
laws  made  by  themselves — though  they  were  meant 
to  apply  to  other  people ! 


"DIRECT    ACTION''  113 

fords.  Whoever  dreams  of  "direct  action" 
as  a  corrective  to  the  abuse  of  Parhamentary 
power  or  a  menace  to  a  Government,  must 
know  quite  well  that  that  action  can  only  arise 
in  a  state  of  strong  popular  indignation,  when 
the  behaviour  of  those  in  power  is  such  that  the 
ordinary  political  mind  of  the  people  is  upset, 
and  that  confidence  in  Parliament  is  forfeited 
— when,  in  fact.  Governments  have  created 
revolutionary  conditions.  Therefore,  the  only 
conditions  under  which  an  agitation  for  "direct 
action"  to  secure  political  ends  can  ever  become 
a  serious  thing  are  themselves  a  safeguard 
against  the  habitual  use,  which  would  be  the 
abuse,  of  the  weapon.  An  attempt  at  "direct 
action"  under  any  other  circumstances  would 
fail  so  signally  that  it  could  not  amount  to  so- 
cial inconvenience,  and  it  would  prevent  any 
similar  attempt  being  made  for  long  years  to 
come. 

This  also  explains  why  the  argument  that 
"direct  action"  is  inconsistent  with  Parliamen- 


114     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

tary  government  is  baseless,  because  such  action 
can  never  come  into  operation  whilst  Parlia- 
mentary government  is  fulfilling  its  functions 
as  representative  government:  it  can  only  be 
used  to  support  representative  government. 

These  points  of  explanation  being  cleared,  I 
must  consider  others  relating  to  "direct  action" 
itself. 

The  word  unfortunately  is  used  in  a  very 
confused  way  to  indicate  a  strike  either  for  po- 
litical or  industrial  ends,  and  the  confusion  lies 
over  much  of  present-day  thinking  regarding 
the  actions  of  workmen  as  wage-earners  and  as 
citizens — regarding  the  relations  between  trade 
union  and  political  action.  "Direct  action"  for 
political  purposes — say,  the  ending  of  a  Gov- 
ernment— would  be  taken  by  trade  unions  de- 
claring a  strike  in  exactly  the  same  way  as 
though  the  purpose  to  be  gained  was  industrial 
— say,  an  increase  of  wages.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  nature  of  the  action  in  the  two  cases, 
respectively,   is   quite   distinct   and   different. 


''DIRECT    ACTION''  115 

When  it  declares  a  strike  for  industrial  pur- 
poses a  union  joins  issue  with  its  declared 
enemy,  the  capitalist.  The  object  it  places 
before  it  is  specific — say,  an  extra  penny  an 
hour — and  whether  the  strike  is  long  or  short 
it  does  not  vary.  The  battleground  and  the 
armies  are  also  well  defined.  It  is  strictly  what 
it  is  generally  called — a  trade  dispute. 

Not  so  when  it  is  a  political  strike.  The 
workmen,  using  trade  union  machinery,  join 
issue  with  the  Government.  The  object  which 
is  to  be  attained,  though  it  may  be  nominally 
definite — say,  the  overthrow  of  a  Government 
— involves  so  many  issues,  and  is  in  itself  so 
very  complicated,  that  it  very  quickly  becomes 
an  all-round  political  controversy,  raising  every 
problem  relating  to  legitimate  democratic  ac- 
tion, and  in  these  consequential  issues  the  sim- 
ple original  one  becomes  obscured.  Nor  are 
the  armies  well  defined,  because,  on  the  one 
hand,  the  action  is  such  as  to  paralyse  Society 
— for  political  "direct  action"  means  that  all 


116     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

the  important  unions  must  be  in  it — and  there- 
fore, not  only  will  it  be  more  difficult  to  keep 
discipline  in  the  attacking  army  of  Labour, 
but  also  to  prevent  the  Government  attacked 
from  getting  reinforcements  from  Society  as 
a  whole;  then  both  armies  and  issues  will  be 
completely  changed,  and  what  was  a  strike  for 
an  apparently  definite  and  comparatively 
small  change  in  reality  becomes  a  revolution. 
Another  consideration  which  shows  the  differ- 
ence between  the  two  forms  is  this.  Any  trade 
union  can  fight  an  industrial  battle  success- 
fully, but  only  certain  unions  can  fight  a  politi- 
cal one.  Tailors  cannot;  only  unions  that  can 
paralyse  State  functions,  like  transport  work- 
ers and  miners,  can.  Further,  the  ballot,  which 
legitimises  a  trade  dispute,  is  rightly  a  ballot  of 
the  members  of  the  union  concerned,  whereas 
the  ballot  that  legitimises  a  political  strike 
should  be  taken  in  a  much  wider  constituency. 
Regarded  in  its  industrial  aspect,  a  general 
strike  may  be  a  Trade  Union  Congress  affair ; 


''DIRECT    ACTION''  117 

regarded  in  its  political  aspect,  it  is  a  Labour 
Party  affair. 

This  is  the  first  practical  consideration  which 
must  be  taken  into  account.  It  means  that 
issues  have  to  be  carefully  studied,  not  only  as 
they  are  at  a  given  moment,  but  as  they  are 
sure  to  develop.  Some  issues  are  much  more 
easily  fought  than  others.  "Direct  action"  to 
secure  "Hands  off  Russia"  and  end  conscrip- 
tion is,  for  instance,  far  more  practicable  than 
"direct  action"  to  overthrow  a  Government, 
because  as  regards  the  former  it  can  be  directed 
in  two  ways,  neither  of  which  can  expand  into 
unforeseen  situations.  In  the  first  place  there 
is  the  general  strike  for  a  limited  period.  This 
is  a  drastic  form  of  demonstration  which  shows 
the  red  light  to  Governments.  Then,  in  the 
next  place,  there  is  a  refusal  to  handle  material 
sent  to  support  the  obnoxious  military  dicta- 
tors, like  the  strike  of  the  Italian  dockers  at 
Genoa. 

The  confusion  between  workshop  and  State 


118     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

issues  which  I  have  been  discussing  has  been 
seriously  encouraged  by  war  conditions.  The 
Government  has  been  an  employer  on  an  ex- 
tensive scale;  it  has  had  to  interfere  in  a  way 
it  has  not  done  hitherto  with  labour  troubles, 
and  whilst  doing  this  it  has  been  defied,  brow- 
beaten, laughed  at..  Its  Munitions  Act  has 
been  torn  in  shreds  and  proclamations  under  it 
treated  as  waste  paper.  From  beginning  to 
end  it  has  cut  a  sorry  figure.  Thus  it  has  come 
about  that  "direct  action,"  which  virtually  was 
a  workshop  affair,  being  taken  against  the 
Government,  appeared  to  be  a  political  affair, 
and  its  complete  success,  not  only  in  gaining 
its  ends  but  in  humiliating  and  making  a  fool 
of  the  Government,  was  an  encouragement  to 
workmen  to  assume  that  for  purely  political 
ends  the  same  method  would  be  effective.  This 
is  a  mistake,  however.  In  building  up  a  policy 
for  "direct  action"  we  must  vigilantly  guard 
ourselves  against  the  fallacy  of  assuming  that 


''DIRECT    ACTION"  119 

the  experiences  during  the  war  are  to  be  rehed 
upon  under  peace  conditions. 

The  difficulties  in  the  way  of  making  politi- 
cal "direct  action"  successful  must  always  be 
an  offset  to  the  theoretical  justification  for  its 
use.  The  objection  to  "direct  action"  is  its 
practical  difficulties,  not  its  constitutional  or 
political  impropriety,  which  does  not  exist. 
Should  circumstances  arise  when  active  politi- 
cal sections  in  the  community  are  convinced 
that  Parliamentary  powers  are  being  abused 
and  that  in  the  interest  of  representative  gov- 
ernment the  abuse  must  be  ended,  if  public 
opinion  will  give  sufficient  support  and  the  ob- 
ject to  be  aimed  at  is  of  such  a  nature  as  to 
allow  the  weapon  to  be  used  effectively,  which 
in  most  cases  means  swiftly,  the  case  for  "direct 
action"  is  complete. 

In  such  circumstances,  however,  whilst  trade 
union  machinery  may  be  used,  it  is  not  merely 
trade  union  ends  that  are  being  served,  and 


120     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

the  action  cannot  be  regarded  as  an  ordinary 
industrial  strike.  In  the  months  after  a  war, 
and  under  conditions  such  as  exist  to-day,  when 
the  workers  find  themselves  betrayed  on  every 
hand,  and  when  every  wind  that  blows  brings 
with  it  the  intoxicating  fumes  of  revolution, 
their  trade  union  organisation  will  be  naturally 
used  to  express  their  feelings.  It  alone  can 
procure  a  mass  movement,  and  it  will  be  used 
because  nothing  else  can  be  used.  This  again, 
however,  only  shows  the  exceptional  nature  of 
the  case.  It  comes  to  this.  The  masses  are 
driven  into  a  corner.  All  means  of  influencing 
the  Government  are  denied  to  them.  They 
know  that  they  are  lied  to  and  cheated.  They 
fall  back  upon  simple  and  drastic  action  for 
which  they  themselves  are  responsible  and 
which  they  themselves  carry  through,  and  in 
doing  this  they  use  the  only  machinery  for 
combined  action  which  they  have  been  able  to 
create — their  trade  unions.  Life  bursts  red 
tape,  and  "correctness"  has  to  be  set  aside. 


"DIRECT    ACTION"  121 

Labour  needs  a  weapon  of  offence  and  defence, 
and  the  union  is  the  only  one  available. 

When  these  things  happen,  however.  Labour 
must  guard  itself  against  a  great  danger. 
When  the  industrial  mind  is  angry,  sectional 
movements  are  apt  to  be  taken,  and  the  dis- 
cipline of  united  action  is  disregarded.  There 
is  a  riot  here  and  a  strike  there ;  the  public  are 
alienated  by  small  inconveniences  and  by  dis- 
connected struggles  which  do  not  embody  large 
issues,  but  which  are  taken  upon  apparently 
small  grievances.  Whilst  on  occasion  these 
may  be  the  preludes  of  a  revolutionary  move- 
ment, they  are  far  more  commonly  the  dissi- 
pation of  the  revolutionary  spirit.  They  throw 
back  the  general  movement;  they  rouse  an- 
tagonism amongst  those  who  would  be  favour- 
able ;  they  discourage  the  mass.  Sectional  out- 
bursts are  the  foes  of  all-round  advance,  and 
much  of  the  spirit  of  "direct  action"  to-day 
issues  in  sectionalism.  This  is  in  consequence 
of  the  way  in  which  the  idea  of  force  has  been 


122     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

associated  with  the  change,  and  the  pose  of 
"rebel"  has  been  joined  with  the  programme 
of  social  transformation. 

I  have  considered  "direct  action"  in  relation 
to  these  troubled  times  when  revolutionary  con- 
ditions are  everywhere,  but  I  must  consider  it 
under  more  normal  conditions  as  well.  For 
Socialists  have  to  meet  the  claim  that  industrial 
action  for  purposes  of  working-class  emanci- 
pation is  more  effective  than  Parliamentary 
action,  the  attempt  being  to  compel  Socialists 
to  take  their  stand  on  one  side  or  the  other.  On 
neither  side  should  Socialists  be  found,  because 
there  are  no  sides  on  the  matter.  If  Socialists 
could  only  get  a  firm  hold  on  their  position  they 
would  have  no  difficulty  in  withstanding  this 
attack. 

To  the  Socialist  the  relative  merits  of  in- 
dustrial and  political  action  must  be  consid- 
ered, not  for  the  purpose  of  abandoning  the 
one  or  the  other,  hut  of  assigning  to  each  its 


''DIRECT    ACTION"  123 

proper  place  on  a  fnll  attack  all  along  the 
line  hy  democracy  upon  capitalism. 

All  affairs  directly  dealing  with  workshop 
conditions,  and  which  are  not  general  to  the 
community  like  a  national  minimum  wage,  can 
best  be  dealt  with  by  "direct  action"  if  unions 
are  strong;  but  national  industry  levels,  like 
the  old  demand  for  an  eight  hours'  day,  can 
best  be  dealt  with  by  political  action,  though 
even  in  that  case  "direct  action"  on  the  part 
of  specially  strong  unions  may  be  essential  to 
spur  on  and  convert  Parliament.  Tyrannical 
and  similar  conduct  on  the  part  of  the  possess- 
ing classes  which  does  not  come  within  the 
scope  of  legislation,  like  the  victimisation  of 
workpeople  or  the  refusal  of  the  Albert  Hall 
authorities  to  let  the  hall  for  a  Labour  demon- 
stration, can  best  be  dealt  with  by  "direct  ac- 
tion." Whether  swift  results  are  required  and 
"direct  action"  can  secure  them,  it  is  the  proper 
means  to  adopt.  Where  Parliament  in  deal- 
ing with  Labour  interests  shows  an  unwilling- 


124     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

ness  to  act  or  a  hostility,  as  when  the  miners 
were  asking  for  the  Coal  Commission,  "direct 
action,"  or  a  threat  of  it,  is  necessary.  But  in 
all  these  cases  it  must  be  noted  that  Parliament 
either  does  not  come  in  at  all,  or,  when  it  does, 
it  is  a  reactionary  Parliament,  acting  in  the  in- 
terests of  the  capitalists.  In  the  latter  case, 
"direct  action"  does  not  supplant  political  ac- 
tion, but  only  contends  against  bad  political 
action.  It  is  political  action  in  a  form  which 
has  become  necessary  because  the  Parliament 
is  bad,  but  which  would  not  be  necessary  if 
the  Parliament  was  good.  It  is  Labour  acting 
as  massed  wage-earners  correcting  the  mis- 
takes it  made  when  it  acted  as  massed  citizens, 
and  I,  believing  in  economising  both  time  and 
energy,  prefer  that  Labour  should  not  have 
made  a  mistake  in  the  first  instance.*    In  any 


*  There  is  a  kind  of  "direct  action"  which  is  very 
enticing  and  which  if  used  within  strict  limits  is  very 
effective.  Where  a  body  of  men,  by  using  the  pow- 
ers they  have  as  workmen  of  a  special  kind,  can  in- 


"DIRECT    ACTION'*  125 

event,  I  cannot  conceive  of  a  Socialist  believing 
that  he  has  at  last  found  the  most  effective  way 
to  his  goal  when  he  has  discovered  how  to  undo 
some  of  the  evil  designs  of  a  Parliament  in  the 
election  of  which  he  has  either  taken  no  concern 
or  failed  to  get  such  good  results  as  he  desired. 
Get  the  proper  Parliament,  and  political  "di- 
rect action"  is  unnecessary  for  Labour;  get  the 
most  successful  "direct  action,"  and  its  results 
have  still  to  become  the  subject  of  Parliamen- 
tary handling,  as  the  miners  are  now  finding 
out.  The  advocates  of  "direct  action"  as  a  sub- 
stitute for  political  action  always  begin  their 
examination  of  events  too  late  in  the  process 
and  finish  it  too  soon.    They  do  not  go  through 


fluence  political  acts,  they  are  tempted  to  do  so.  The 
conduct  of  the  electric  workers  at  the  Albert  Hall 
and  that  of  the  seamen  in  refusing  to  sail  with  cer- 
tain passengers  during  the  war,  are  cases  in  point. 
If  the. printers  had  refused  to  set  up  in  newspapers 
what  they  knew  to  be  misrepresentations  of  fact  and 
malicious  attacks  upon  Labour,  that  would  have  been 
another  case  in  point.    The  danger  is  that  the  limits 


126     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

the  whole  process  of  the  series  of  events  in 
which  the  "direct  action"  is  but  an  incident. 
This  is  well  illustrated  in  the  way  that  the  Rus- 
sian position  presents  itself  to  many  minds. 

We  must  begin  with  Czardom  and  its  politi- 
cal system,  and  go  on  to  Kerensky  and  the  pol- 
icy imposed  upon  him  by  his  connection  with 
the  Allies.  The  first  issued  in  the  second,  and 
both  gave  birth  to  Bolshevism,  which  di  J  not 
arise  as  an  independent  movement  of  thought, 
but  came  as  an  historical  product  of  Czarism 
and  Kerenskyism  (as  is  seen  by  a  study  of 
Lenin's  speeches  as  the  critic  of  Kerensky). 
Wlien  power  came  to  Lenin,  it  was  political 


within  which  that  power  can  be  properly  exercised 
are  so  easily  overstepped.  The  electric  workers  may 
be  tempted  to  prevent  an  obnoxious  meeting  as  well 
as  to  secure  the  holding  of  a  welcome  one ;  the  sea- 
men's action  was  known  to  have  been  prompted  by 
false  representations  and  their  leaders  by  other  in- 
ducements ;  the  printers  might  constitute  themselves 
press  censors.  So  we  had  better  fall  back  upon  the 
rule  that  in  all  matters  of  opinion,  liberty:  and  that 
action  such  as  T  am  considering  should,  as  in  the  Al- 
bert Hall  case,  be  confined  to  securing  liberty. 


''DIRECT    ACTION"  127 

first,  and  his  economic  prograinnie  was  carried 
out  not  by  "direct  action,"  but  by  political  de- 
cree. This  evolution  can  never  be  avoided. 
The  authority  of  revolution  is  political  in  the 
end;  the  power  of  evolution  is  political.  But 
whether  in  eruptive  revolution  or  in  transform- 
ing evolution.  Socialists  must  never  forget  that 
the  industrial  State  and  its  appropriate  meth- 
ods is  an  aspect  of  the  political  State  and  its 
methods,  that  both  are  embodied  in  Society, 
and  that  the  unity  of  both  must  be  firmly  fixed 
in  every  mind  which  is  considering  either  the 
method  or  the  goal  of  progress. 


X 

REVOLUTION 

Revolution  is  the  result  of  resistance  of- 
fered to  movements  that  cannot  be  resisted, 
not  an  upset  dehberately  arranged  for  by  the 
exponents  of  some  new  ideas.  Revolution  is 
the  product  of  ideas,  but  the  ideas  must  be  con- 
fined in  order  to  be  explosive.  Until  ideas  are 
resisted  by  force  they  cannot  make  revolutions. 
Of  course  there  are  revolutions  which  are  not 
democratic  and  which  have  nothing  to  do  with 
social  revolution.  There  is  the  military  coup 
d'etat,  there  is  the  palace  conspiracy  when  one 
ruler  displaces  another,  there  is  the  revolution 
of  Sidney  Street  when  Ishmael  comes  into  civi- 

128 


REVOLUTION  129 

lisation  from  his  wilderness  and  holds  up  civi- 
lisation. Of  these  I  do  not  speak.  I  speak  of 
the  kind  of  revolution  which  some  people  think 
to  be  necessary  if  capitalism  is  ever  to  be  sup- 
planted by  Socialism;  of  that  revolutionary 
propaganda  and  vision  which  have  arisen  from 
the  Russian  Revolution,  and  which,  discarding 
the  historical,  scientific  method  of  Marx,  adopt 
the  metaphysical  philosophy  which  Marx  and 
Engels  so  unmercifully  trounced. 

A  revolution  dreamt  of  and  planned,  be- 
cause, logically,  an  old  order  must  refuse  to  be 
transformed,  is  an  absurd  thing.  Yet,  to  a 
very  considerable  extent  such  is  the  position 
of  the  "revolutionary"  movement  here.  Its 
logic  begins  by  misunderstanding  the  nature  of 
society,  believing  it  to  be  a  hard  resisting  struc- 
ture, an  old  bottle  which  contains  in  physical 
separateness  the  new  wine,  a  house  in  which  an 
increasing  family  dwells.  Whereas  the  social 
organisation,  like  the  body,  is  in  a  constant 
state  of  change  and  of  readaptation,  respon- 


130     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

sive  to  every  movement  of  the  human  intelli- 
gence, sensitive  to  every  change  in  the  mass 
will.  That  is  so  whether  "economic  determin- 
ism" or  "intellectual  determinism"  is  right, 
whether  progress  proceeds  by  a  class  struggle 
or  by  the  readjustment  of  functions  in  a  so- 
ciety growing  in  vigour  and  complete- 
ness. 

Equally  false  are  its  excuses  why  it  should 
not  use  democracy.  The  democracy  may  be 
ignorant  and  unresponsive  to  truth  and  new 
ideas ;  a  revolution  will  not  make  it  intelligent. 
Capitalism  to-day  may  use  "democracy  in  the 
mass"  for  its  own  ends;  cannot  governing  La- 
bour do  the  same?  Will  the  seizure  of  power 
by  a  few  paralyse  forever  the  opposition  of 
opponents,  or  teach  the  masses  the  wisdom  that 
nothing  else  has  taught  them,  or  induce  them 
to  fit  themselves  into  conditions  which  now 
create  in  their  lethargic  minds  hostility  and  op- 
position? 

So,  the  logic  I  am  examining  adds  to  its 


REVOLUTION  131 

other  faults  that  of  ending  its  reasoning  at  the 
point  where  it  should  begin  and,  having  made 
its  criticisms,  it  tires  of  its  pursuits  and  leaves 
its  constructive  programme  to  chance.  The 
beginning  of  the  end  of  its  constructive  work 
is:  Wait  and  see.  Serious  men  must  protest 
against  such  reckless  folly.  Socialism  asks  of 
its  friends  patient  and  laborious  thought,  rec- 
titude, and  an  ability  to  handle  great  affairs. 
We  have  had  enough  revolutions  of  the  sword 
and  the  turmoil.  Socialism  asks  for  a  revolu- 
tion of  the  trowel  and  the  disciplined  intelli- 
gence. 

The  conception  of  revolution  which  I  criti- 
cise also  misunderstands  itself.  It  thinks  that 
revolution  can  be  born  from  the  wills  of  a  select 
few  meeting  with  the  opposition  or  the  lethargy 
of  the  many,  whereas  it  can  only  be  created 
when  the  weight  of  pent-up  opposition  smashes 
through  the  barriers  which  hold  it  back.  It 
thinks  it  can  make  itself;  it  can  only  be  made 
by  social  pressure.     It  thinks  that  revolution 


132     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

is  a  matter  of  metaphysics  and  logic;  it  is  a 
matter  of  social  friction. 

With  one  aspect  of  the  revolutionary  im- 
pulse I  am  in  complete  sympathy.  It  demands 
action;  it  is  weary  of  declarations  and  resolu- 
tions which  produce  nothing.  We  have  all  had 
this  feeling  enlivened  by  the  work  of  the  Sec- 
ond International.  It  met  at  Berne,  and  de- 
clared its  position  on  the  great  international 
interests  of  the  day — the  Treaty  of  Peace, 
national  boundaries,  the  League  of  Nations; 
and  it  resolved  to  send  a  deputation  of  enquiry 
into  Russia.  Nothing  has  happened.  Its  wis- 
dom has  been  treated  with  contempt  by  the 
Governments ;  its  request  for  passports  has  met 
with  denial  casually  given.  Its  Permanent 
Commission  has  met  in  Amsterdam  and  again 
in  Lucerne.  It  has  repeated  its  wisdom  and 
the  Governments  have  repeated  their  rebuffs. 
Never  has  a  more  ample  supply  of  crumbs  been 
thrown  from  the  masters'  table;  never  with 
more  insult  has  Labour  been  refused  a  place  at 


REVOLUTION  133 

the  feast.  Its  power  in  small  things  has  heen 
increased;  in  the  large  affairs  and  poHcies  of 
States  it  is  as  weak  to-day  as  ever  it  was.  In 
these  times  of  critical  action  when  decisions 
are  to  determine  the  fate  of  generations  this 
weakness  is  a  special  grievance.  No  one  re- 
quires to  come  and  tell  me,  by  marshalled  ar- 
gument and  indignant  rhetoric,  of  the  humilia- 
tion under  which  Labour  suffers.  It  cuts  like 
a  thong  into  one's  soul.  It  is  the  putting  up  of 
barriers  against  ideas  which  makes  ideas  revo- 
lutionary. 

But,  obviously,  whoever  longs  for  action  can- 
not long  for  any  action — for  the  forlorn  splash 
of  the  topmost  ripples  over  the  barriers.  When 
we  think  of  it,  the  inaction  which  is  so  galling 
is  the  inaction  of  those  feeding  on  the  crumbs 
under  the  table.  It  is  inaction  because  the  lev- 
erage for  action  is  not  there.  True,  some  lead- 
ers are  partly  to  blame  for  this.  The  action, 
for  instance,  of  the  French  Minority  at  the 
meetings  of  the  International  could  not  be 


134     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

otherwise  if  they  were  a  wing  of  the  Govern- 
ments serving  the  interests  of  the  Govern- 
ments. That,  however,  is  not  the  determining 
factor.  The  Sociahst  is  not  in  authority;  his 
guns  are  too  far  off  for  him  to  plant  his  shells 
in  the  midst  of  the  enemy's  camp.  The  only 
action  which  is  possible  at  the  moment  is  that 
of  changing  opinion  and  awakening"  intelli- 
gence. There  may  be  strikes  for  this  and  riots 
for  that,  and  this  may  be  gained  and  that  may 
be  won.  It  is  true  that  Labour  in  an  unsettled 
frame  of  mind  and  in  an  ugly  temper  makes 
Governments  careful,  but  where  does  that  bring 
us?  All  these  things  are  only  checks.  When 
we  come  to  consider  the  position  of  the  Miners' 
Federation  in  relation  to  mining  affairs  we  are 
in  the  presence  of  a  different  set  of  conditions. 
Here  we  have  a  body  of  men  well  knit  to- 
gether in  their  own  interests,  who  come  to  reso- 
lutions and  who  can  act  upon  them  because  of 
their  organisation.  Thus  it  has  come  about 
that  thoughtless  persons  are  always  telling  the 


REVOLUTION  135 

miners  that  ihey  should  strike  for  this  course 
and  for  that,  forgetting  all  the  time  that  the 
Miners'  Federation  is  not  an  association  of 
general  human  regeneration  formed  for  the 
purpose  of  making  it  unnecessary  for  those 
who  would  advise  it  to  take  upon  their  own 
shoulders  the  burdens  of  their  advice. 

I  doubt  if  any  model  of  political  action  is 
more  misunderstood,  both  by  friend  and  foe 
alike,  than  is  the  JNIiners'  Federation.  It  is  a 
mining  organisation  formed  for  industrial  pur- 
poses ;  its  membership  is  confined  to  mine  work- 
ers, its  immediate  objects  are  concerned  with 
pits.  In  these  days  of  interlaced  influence  and 
concern  such  a  body  must  have  a  hand  in  poli- 
tics, and  if  the  worker  industrially  organised 
were  called  upon  to  save  his  nation  by  indus- 
trial action,  the  Federation  would  be  expected 
to  play  its  part,  and,  no  doubt,  would  do  it. 
But  it  is  not  the  instrument  of  action  such  as 
I  am  now  discussing.  When  the  representa- 
tives of  the  Second  International  go  to  the 


136     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

Governments,  they  have  no  body  behind  them 
such  as  Mr.  Smillie  has  when  he  asks  for  a  Coal 
Commission.  If  they  had,  they  would  produce 
action.  The  intelligence  of  the  people  has 
never  yet  translated  their  potentialities  of 
power  into  power  itself,  and  therefore  the  con- 
ditions of  effective  action  such  as  is  asked  for 
do  not  exist,  and  before  we  have  action  they 
must  exist.  To  create  it  without  them  is  only 
playing  at  revolution.  Any  man  can  raise  a 
standard,  but  it  requires  a  disciplined  crowd  to 
win  the  battle. 

Therefore,  when  people  impatiently  demand 
action  they  ought  to  see  first  of  all  that  the 
conditions  of  action  are  present ;  if  they  are  not 
they  should  help  to  create  them.  Only  when 
that  is  done  can  they  reasonably  blame  leaders. 
When  they  do  that  work  they  will  find  that  the 
weapon  which  they  have  been  fashioning  for 
use  is,  in  this  country,  at  any  rate,  not  a  revo- 
lutionary, but  a  political  one.  As  the  condi- 
tions of  a  revolution  are  created  they  will  filter 


REVOLUTION  137 

into  Parliament,  and  there  the  action  will  take 
place.  Again,  I  appeal  to  our  active  spirits  to 
go  in  for  real  politics  and  not  to  be  content  to 
indulge  in  metaphj^sical  ones.  Fight  and  edu- 
cate; educate  and  fight.  It  is  true  that  in  the 
meantime  the  hateful  reaction  will  be  in  author- 
ity, but  the  reaction  knows  that  the  most  omi- 
nous thing  it  has  to  face  is  a  steadily  growing 
beleaguering  army. 

We  must  analyse  revolution  into  its  stages. 
The  Socialist  stage  of  the  Russian  revolution 
followed  the  political  stage,  and  consists  of 
two  sections — that  of  programme  and  that  of 
method.  I  leave  out  of  account  the  Terror  and 
similar  incidents,  not  only  because  most  of 
them  are  mere  fabrications,*  but  because  they 


*  The  number  of  times  that  Kropotkin  and  other 
people  whose  names  are  known  in  Great  Britain  have 
been  shot,  has  become  a  joke,  but  the  prettiest  of 
all  the  tales  is  one  which,  so  far,  I  have  only  seen  in 
foreign  newspapers.  When  Maria  Spiridonovna  was 
tried  for  characterising  one  of  Tchicherine's  notes  to 
the  Allies  as  "a  base  betrayal  of  the  Russian  work- 


138     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

belong  to  the  counter-revolution  and  have 
nothing  to  do  with  the  political  colour  of  the 
party  in  power.  Besides,  Lenin  abhors  them, 
whereas  Koltchak  glories  in  them.  The  pro- 
gramme is  such,  on  the  whole,  as  any  Socialist 
government  would  put  into  operation,  though 
its  land  policy  would  be  stronger  in  this  coun- 
try and,  with  some  preliminary  preparation,  its 
proposals  regarding  wealth  conscription  would 
have  been  less  crude.  The  distinctive  revolu- 
tionary feature  was  therefore  that  of  method. 
Now,  the  method  depended  solely  upon  the 
fact  that  a  political  revolution  had  been  neces- 


ers,"  the  Stockholm  newspaper  manufactory  of  atroc- 
ities reported  that  she  had  been  sentenced  to  be  shot 
and  our  newspapers  displayed  the  news  with  ap- 
propriate moral  disgust.  The  fact  is  that  this  revo- 
lutionary showed  by  her  behaviour  in  the  Court  that 
she  was  terribly  overstrung  (revolution  with  her  had 
not  been  a  pastime),  and  the  "sentence"  actually 
passed  on  her  was  a  year  in  a  sanatorium,  with  a 
rider  added  that  it  was  hoped  she  might  enjoy  her 
rest  to  gain  new  strength  "through  healthy  physical 
and  mental  work." 


REVOLUTION  139 

sary,  and  that  the  country  was  bankrupt  and 
in  a  state  of  poHtical  and  industrial  collapse. 
In  this  country  we  have  had  our  political 
revolution.    Everyone  who  has  come  into  touch 
with  the  revolutionaries  of  the  non-democratic 
countries  of  Europe  must  have  been  struck 
with  the   limited   nature   of   their   intentions. 
How  often  have  I  heard  British  Socialists  com- 
ment that  they  were  only  Liberals  or  at  best 
Radicals.    Thus,  so  far  as  this  country  is  con- 
cerned, we  have  reached  the  stage  when  the  So- 
cialist programme  is  a  matter  of  political  fight- 
ing.   A  Parliamentary  election  will  give  us  all 
the  power  that  Lenin  had  to  get  by  a  revolu- 
tion, and  such  a  majority  can  proceed  to  effect 
the   transition   from   capitalism   to    Socialism 
with  the  co-operation  of  the  people,  and  not 
merely  by  edict.     JMore  than  that,  a  country 
which  has  gained  already  all  that  a  political 
revolution  can  give  it,  cannot  begin  its  social 
revolution  as  Russia  began  its.     To  have  an 
election  followed  by  a  revolution  for  the  pur- 


140     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

pose  of  carrying  out  the  progTamme  of  the  de- 
feated minority  belongs  to  the  world  of  play- 
full}'^  fanciful  romance,  not  to  that  of  serious 
politics.  I  can  imagine  that  a  Socialist  gov- 
ernment in  Parliament  may  be  met  by  obstruc- 
tion, and  in  the  country  by  agitation.  But  if 
that  government  has  the  country  behind  it,  it 
will  stand  no  humbug  in  Parliament;  if  it  has 
not  the  country  behind  it,  it  can  neither  work 
Parliament  nor  create  a  revolution.  It  cer- 
tainly should  be  bold ;  if  as  a  result  of  this  bold- 
ness, Parliament  began  to  work  and  the  opposi- 
tion were  overawed  into  decency — good  and 
well ;  if  not,  a  revolution  would  still  be  a  thing 
which  could  not  be  pulled  off.  Of  course,  if 
it  came  to  be  that  we  had  a  bankrupt  country, 
a  demoralised  and  disorganisel  people,  and  an- 
archy, either  active  or  latent,  from  one  end  of 
a  ruined  nation  to  the  other,  a  Committee  of 
Public  Safety  might  well  step  into  Whitehall 
and  make  up  its  mind  to  impose  a  New  Order 
upon  an  Old  Chaos,  but  the  origin  and  circum- 


REVOLUTION  141 

stances  of  that  revolution  would  not  be  those 
of  the  committee  room,  the  book  logic,  the  mi- 
nority intellectual  wisdom  which  our  present 
day  anti-Parliamentarians  offer  as  a  means  of 
Socialist  progress.  Therefore,  I  conclude  that 
for  a  progressive  movement  here  to  try  and 
copy  Russian  methods,  or  create  Russian  con- 
ditions, is  to  go  back  upon  our  own  evolution, 
and  that  if  the  design  were  successful  it  would 
only  bring  us  face  to  face  with  the  very  same 
difficulties  as  Parliamentary  methods  have  to 
meet. 

This  consideration  does  not  weigh,  however, 
with  those  who  have  abandoned  political  action. 
They  say  that  chaos  must  come  and  that  it 
ought  to  be  created,  because  only  then  will  the 
vigour  of  Socialism  manifest  itself  as  it  did  in 
Russia  after  the  fall  of  Kerensky.  These 
people  value  vigour  for  its  own  sake,  not  for 
its  results,  and  yet  strangely  enough  this  most 
metaphysical  of  all  conceptions  of  social  change 
is  held  by  those  who  are  specially  fond  of  call- 


142     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

ing  themselves  "scientific."  The  adjective 
would  be  given  to  them  by  no  one  else  but  them- 
selves. 

Will  Socialist  forces  act  better  under  revo- 
lutionary than  under  Parliamentary  condi- 
tions? The  greatest  weakness  of  Socialist 
forces  is  their  tendency  to  split  up  and  to  dis- 
sipate their  spirit  in  internal  disputes  just  at 
the  moment  of  apparent  success.  Ever  since 
I  have  been  a  member  of  the  Independent 
Labour  Party  this  curse  has  troubled  it.  The 
religious  disputes  on  grace  and  salvation  which 
have  always  weakened  religious  revolutions, 
crop  up  to  this  day  amongst  political  pioneers. 
A  revolution  should  be  a  signal  not  for  closing 
ranks  but  for  opening  them  up.  Its  unsettle- 
ment  affects  the  revolutionists  themselves. 
Whoever  has  followed  events  in  revolutionary 
Europe  during  the  past  twelve  months  must 
be  convinced  that  the  divisions  in  the  Socialist 
ranks  must  have  brought  Socialist  power  to  a 
speedy  termination  were  it  not  that  defeat  in 


REVOLUTION  143 

the  field  during  the  war  had  completely  de- 
moralised the  counter-revolution  and  deprived 
it  of  all  chance  of  an  immediate  rally.  The 
treatment  that  the  Social  Revolutionaries  have 
had  at  the  hands  of  the  Bolshevists,  the  fra- 
tricidal conflicts  in  Germany,  the  divisions  in 
Hungary,  should  be  studied  not  as  evidence 
that  there  are  Socialists  who  are  not  Socialists, 
but  that  revolutions  disrupt  the  parties  that 
ought  to  benefit  by  them.  So  do  Parliamen- 
tary methods,  but  their  consequences  are  noth- 
ing compared  with  the  other.  The  reason  for 
this  must  be  apparent  to  everyone.  Fear  al- 
ways shadows  revolution;  suspicion  sits  at  the 
table  with  exery  Committee  of  Public  Safety. 
A  revolution  presents  every  Socialist  problem 
for  simultaneous  settlement;  it  is  the  road  of 
maximum  difficulty;  it  is  also  the  occasion  both 
of  minimum  confidence  and  co-operation  and  of 
the  necessity  of  concentrating  power  in  the 
hands  of  a  few.  Only  reckless  folly  would  de- 
liberately choose  this  way  of  minimum  chance 


144     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

of  bringing  Socialism  about  and  of  establishing 
the  Socialist  State. 

Every  Socialist  relationship  is  so  interdepen- 
dent, that  under  the  most  favourable  conditions 
much   failure  must  attend  the   first   schemes 
of  socialisation.    No  one  could  preach  a  better 
sermon  on  that  text  than  Lenin,  unless  it  were 
Bela  Kun.     When  these  failures  have  to  be 
faced   in   one   nation   alone   they    are   trying 
enough;  when  they  are  attended  by  a  revolu- 
tion which  draws  upon  itself  the  enmity  of  the 
world,  they  will  break  the  ablest  and  the  most 
devoted  men.     For  a  revolution,  by  destroy- 
ing, or  at  any  rate  paralysing  for  the  time 
being,  the  ordinary  economic  life  of  a  nation 
makes   that   nation   dependent   upon   foreign 
states.    It  must,  therefore,  receive  foreign  sym- 
pathy and  support.     So  long  as  the  world  is 
ruled  by  capitalism  this  support  will  not  be 
forthcoming.     A   Socialist  revolution  in  this 
country    could   be    starved    out   by   America 
much  more  easily  than  the  Socialist  revolu- 


REVOLUTION  115 

tion  in  Russia  can  be  fought  out  by  the  AlHes. 
No  wise  Socialist  need  plot  and  plan  a  re- 
volution. If  bankruptcy  ends  the  present 
order  in  disaster  and  disgrace,  if  the  mean- 
ness of  mind  of  our  politicians  who  for  mo- 
mentary triumphs  degrade  public  life  and  mis- 
lead the  country  like  demagogues  and  char- 
latans until  Parliament  has  forfeited  respect 
and  neither  persons  nor  institutions  wield 
moral  or  political  authority,  if  prices  of  com- 
modities keep  high  and  life  becomes  harder,  if 
we  continue  to  be  made  the  prey  of  profiteers 
and  plunderers  and  the  evidences  of  their  ill- 
gotten  gains  are  to  be  flaunted  in  the  face  of 
the  distressed  people,  if  the  mind  of  the.  mass  is 
the  subject  of  daily  misrepresentation  in  a  con- 
temptible press,  and  if  the  desire  of  the  best 
thought  of  democracy  to  find  expression  and  to 
be  consulted  as  a  responsible  authority  is 
thwarted  by  tricksters  and  cheap  jacks,  then 
Labour  troubles  will  become  chronic,  restless- 
ness will  defy  reason,  anarchy  will   spread, 


146     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

and  social  cohesion  will  be  destroyed.  Then 
also  the  duty  of  Socialists  will  be  clear.  That 
will  be  the  friction  which  causes  revolution, 
that  will  be  the  hindrance  which  makes  ideas 
explosive.  The  Socialists  alone  can  then  save 
the  State,  and  a  decisive  act  of  commanding 
will  be  required  to  do  it.  It  may  be  a  mi- 
nority that  will  have  to  act,  but,  in  this  process 
of  creating  revolutionary  conditions,  the  ma- 
jority will  have  been  deprived  of  its  authority, 
of  its  intelligence,  of  its  defences,  of  justice. 
It  will  have  been  weakened  by  fear,  and  be 
made  cowardly  by  its  own  sense  of  its  crimin- 
ality and  unworthiness. 


XI 

THE  INDEPENDENT  LABOUR 
PARTY 

I  CANNOT  conceive  that  the  end  of  good 
government  is  to  make  Societj^  stagnant  by  its 
excellence  and  to  lull  the  individual  into 
quiescence  by  the  security  he  feels  under  it. 
Nor  can  I  conceive  of  any  rational  theory  of 
progress  that  depends  upon  periodic  and  vio- 
lent revolution  as  a  means.  Every  day  comes 
with  its  own  revolution  in  a  progressive  society 
just  as  a  series  of  explosions  produces  motion 
and  a  series  of  impacts  produces  harmony. 
The  individual,  energetic  in  mind  and  in  action, 
is  too  valuable  to  his  community  to  be  lulled  to 

147 


148     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

sleep  or  to  be  condemned  if  he  occasionally  pro- 
duces trouble  and  inconvenience.  The  revolu- 
tionary and  exploring  spirit  will  always  be 
necessary  to  keep  Society  from  stagnating. 
It  is  not  a  menace  to  Society;  it  is  the  life  of 
Society.  Therefore,  whilst  the  Socialist  con- 
ception of  Society  remains  fixed,  its  creeds  and 
methods  must  never  sink  into  infallible  dogma 
and  its  gospels  become  closed  books.  It  is  said 
of  Marx  that  he  was  once  overheard  muttering 
to  himself,  "Thank  God,  I  am  no  Marxist," 
and  his  great  protagonist,  Clara  Zetkin,  has 
written,  "When  the  pen  fell  from  Marx's  hand, 
the  last  word  on  Socialism  had  not  been  writ- 
ten." 

In  maintaining  this  revolutionary  and  cri- 
tical mind,  it  is  futile  to  scurry  about  from  fev- 
erish dream  to  feverish  dream.  The  minds 
which  do  this  are  generally  those  which  live  on 
superficialities — now  the  panacea  of  a  new  elec- 
toral system,  now  the  Gileadite  test  of  some 
phrase  or  dogma,   now  the  heaven-disclosed 


THE  INDEPENDENT  LABOUR  PARTY    149 

evangel  of  a  new  thought.  Nothing  is  of  any 
use  till  it  is  digested  and  set  into  the  system  of 
action  in  which  it  is  to  play  a  part,  and  the  hom- 
age done  to  the  Russian  Revolution  by  an  un- 
critical adoption  of  its  phases  and  its  phrases 
is  not  one  worthy  of  acceptance  by  those  to 
whom  it  is  offered. 

The  Russian  Revolution  has  been  one  of  the 
greatest  events  in  the  history  of  the  world, 
and  the  attacks  that  have  been  made  upon  it 
by  frightened  ruling  classes  and  hostile  capi- 
talism should  rally  to  its  defence  everyone  who 
cares  for  political  liberty  and  freedom  of 
thought.  But  it  is  Russian.  Its  historical  set- 
ting and  parentage  is  Russia;  the  economic 
State  in  which  it  is  is  Russia.  INIoreover,  it  is 
still  in  its  eruptive  stage,  and  has  hardly  passed 
under  the  moulding  hand  of  evolution.  What 
it  is  to  become,  who  can  say?  All  we  can  do  is 
to  see  that  it  has  a  chance  of  becoming  some- 
thing, and  not  die  away  like  the  Peace  Night 
flares  that  are  gleaming  in  the  sky  as  I  write 


150     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

this.  To  cry  as  flare  after  flare  goes  up :  "This 
is  the  permanent  pillar  of  fire  which  is  to  light 
us  to  Canaan,"  is  certainly  not  common  sense. 
We  know  that  some  expedients  have  been 
purely  temporary ;  we  know  that  others  cannot 
bear  close  and  detailed  examination.*  For 
them  the  comprehensive  excuse,  which  is  a 
justification  under  the  circumstances,  can  be 
made  that  they  belong  to  the  stress  of  revolu- 
tion. History  may  justify  their  authors,  but 
it  certainly  will  not  their  copyers.  Lenin  in  this 
respect  is  too  big  a  man  to  be  a  Leninite,  as  he 
told  Bela  Kun  when  Hungary  passed  under 
Soviet  Government. 

Political  action  remains  the  normal  method 
of  transforming  the  structure  of  commu- 
nities, both  politically  and  socially.  The  prob- 
lem of  adapting  it  to  its  work  is  far  from  being 
solved,  that  of  mass  action  is  only  beginning 

*  I  commend  a  careful  study  of  Mr.  Ransome's 
book,  Six  Weeks  in  Russia  in  19 19^  to  everyone  who 
really  wishes  to  understand  Russian  events. 


THE  INDEPENDENT  LABOUR  PARTY   151 

to  be  understood.  Treatises  on  the  subject 
written  by  the  last  great  school  of  political 
theorists,  the  Radicals,  are  out  of  date.  The 
task  of  the  Socialist  is  to  make  enlightenment 
come  quick — but  it  must  be  enlightenment;  to 
co-ordinate  in  a  movement  all  the  forces  that 
make  for  organic  change  such  as  he  wishes ;  to 
concentrate,  in  this  time  of  unsettled  minds  and 
habits,  upon  great  essentials,  as  the  Miners' 
Federation  is  doing  in  its  own  concerns ;  and  to 
prevent  the  world  from  being  closed  to  new 
ideas  and  experiments  like  those  now  coming 
from  Russia. 

If  this  is  said  to  be  slow,  I  reply  that  it  need 
not  be  so,  but  that,  if  it  is,  it  is  so  by  the  nature 
of  Society,  and  no  revolutionary  action  can  be 
planned  to  avoid  the  slowness.  All  short  cuts 
swing  round  in  a  circuit  to  where  they  started. 
The  footpath  is  for  the  individual,  the  high  road 
for  the  crowd.  It  is  hard  for  Socialists  to  fight 
capitalism;  it  is  much  harder  for  them  to  fight 
Nature.    Whether  by  revolution  or  without  it, 


152     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

the  transformation  of  the  economic  structure 
of  Society  is  no  easy  undertaking,  as  Lenin  is 
now  confessing,  and  the  success  of  the  venture 
must  depend  in  a  very  great  measure  upon  the 
spirit  in  which  it  is  undertaken.  One  kind  of 
spirit  which  appeals  to  the  impatience  of  the 
time  is,  I  believe,  to  lead  Socialism  into  disaster 
proportionate  to  the  simplicity  with  which  it 
presents  our  problems  and  the  dogmatic  logic 
with  which  it  supports  them.  To  such  minds 
force  and  authority  are  the  characteristic  modes 
of  thought  and  expedients  for  action.  They 
deal  with  book  logic,  and  not  with  Society; 
they  begin  their  researches  by  writing  their 
conclusions;  and  their  political  method  is  at 
enmity  with  liberty.  In  every  country,  though 
especially  in  those  governed  tyrannically,  the 
revolutionary  type  is  bred.  It  is  there  the 
salt  of  the  earth.  It  lives  like  hunted  beasts; 
its  life  is  constantly  in  its  hands;  it  is  defiant 
and  untamable;  it  acquires  the  psychology  of 
the  powers  with  which  it  is  at  war;  it  would 


THE  INDEPENDENT  LABOUR  PARTY    153 

leap  into  police  offices,  as  they  have  leaped  into 
them,  and  turn  upon  rulers  the  captured  ma- 
chine, as  soldiers  turn  captured  guns  upon 
their  late  owners.  Without  these  men,  Europe 
to-day  would  be  a  filthy,  stagnant  pool.  But 
it  is  quite  different  with  imitators  who  in  peace- 
ful streets  try  to  feel  like  them,  who  use  im- 
agination to  surround  themselves  with  the 
hardships  in  which  the  originals  live,  and  who 
in  humdrum  lives  find  romance  in  revolutionary 
dogmas.  This  pseudo-revolutionism  has  noth- 
ing in  common  with  the  real  thing — and  cer- 
tainly nothing  in  common  with  Socialism.  It 
subverts  Socialism;  it  distracts  and  disrupts  it; 
it  gives  it  no  personalities  who  can  be  relied 
upon  and  no  guidance  which  is  illuminating. 
It  is  particularly  destructive  amongst  the 
youth  who  start  with  a  gay  spurt  up  the  hill 
of  life — may  they  never  do  otherwise! — and 
leaves  them  when  their  first  wind  has  been  ex- 
hausted on  a  trackless  country. 

The  Socialist  spirit  is  that  of  liberty,  of  dis- 


154     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

cussion.  It  is  historical  and  not  cataclysmic. 
It  is  objective  as  well  as  subjective;  it  can  un- 
derstand as  well  as  feel.  It  can  admire  even 
when  it  does  not  agree.  Such  admiration  is 
part  of  the  capacity  to  transform  Society,  be- 
cause that  transformation  depends  upon  a  re- 
lationship between  the  mind  of  the  reformer 
and  his  social  circumstances.  It  knows  that 
there  are  various  roads  leading  to  the  same 
trysting  place ;  that  the  Russian  comrades  may 
come  one  way  and  the  British  come  another 
way ;  that  the  method  of  success  is  the  co-oper- 
ation of  differences  within  Socialism  rather 
than  a  formal  unity  which  gives  full  freedom  of 
advance  to  no  section.  To-day  it  recognises 
that  there  is  one  tactic  possible  to  the  people 
of  defeated  countries,  another  possible  to 
people  the  political  fabric  of  whose  States  has 
fallen  to  the  earth,  another  to  the  people  whose 
nations  are  dancing  through  victory  celebra- 
tions and  as  military  conquerors  are  emerging 
from  the  psychology  of  war  to  meet  the  prob- 


THE  INDEPENDENT  LABOUR  PARTY    155 

lems  of  peace.  A  tactic  which  claims  universal 
uniformity  as  a  characteristic  is  self-con- 
demned. 

Above  all  it  discards  lightning  changes  as 
the  way  to  realise  itself.  It  knows  that  no 
system  of  government  or  of  society  can  rest 
upon  anything  but  common  consent — the  con- 
sent of  passive  minds,  or  the  consent  of  active 
minds.  The  latter  kind  of  consent  is  the  only 
one  it  values.  The  idea  of  a  revolution  trans- 
forming the  structure  of  Society  by  the  will  of 
a  minority  must  seem  as  Utopian  to  it  as  the 
ideas  of  the  Owenites  and  of  all  who  sought 
to  create  an  oasis  of  peace  in  the  wilderness  of 
the  capitalist  system.  It  believes  in  democ- 
racy, not  only  as  a  moral  creed  which  alone  is 
consistent  with  its  views  of  humanity,  but  be- 
cause it  is  the  only  practical  creed.  It  knows 
that,  revolutions  or  no  revolutions,  public  con- 
sent is  the  basis  of  all  social  order  and  that  the 
good  builder  makes  his  foundations  sound  be- 
fore he  puts  up  his  storeys. 


156     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

The  Independent  Labour  Party  is  a  product 
of  British  history  and  British  conditions.  It 
is  neither  Russian,  nor  German,  nor  American. 
It  found  the  Radical  movement  as  one  ancestor, 
the  trade  union  movement  as  another,  the  in- 
tellectual proletarian  movement — Chartism 
and  the  earlier  Socialist  thinkers  like  Owen, 
Hall,  Thompson — as  another;  the  Continental 
Socialists — especially  Marx — as  still  another. 
It  has  gathered  up  its  inheritance  and  has  pro- 
duced from  it  an  historical  movement  of  its 
own,  political  in  its  method,  free  in  its  spirit, 
economic  in  its  purpose.  It  comes  after  the 
Liberal  political  revolution,  and  it  therefore 
joins  democracy  to  Socialism,  carrying  on  in 
this  respect  the  work  of  Marx.  It  knows  that 
opinion  must  always  precede  reconstruction, 
but  it  also  knows  that  the  harvest  of  Socialism 
does  not  ripen  in  a  night  and  has  therefore  to 
be  gathered  at  one  cutting,  but  that  every  day 
brings  something  to  fruition,  that  the  mo- 
ments as  they  go  bring  us  nearer  to  Socialism 


THE  INDEPENDENT  LABOUR  PARTY    157 

by  their  products  of  Socialist  thought  and  ex- 
periment which  have  to  be  seized  and  embodied 
in  the  transforming  structure  of  Society,  not 
in  a  bunch,  but  bit  by  bit.  It  believes  in  the 
class  conflict  as  a  descriptive  fact,  but  it  does 
not  regard  it  as  supplj^ing  a  political  method. 
It  strives  to  transform  through  education, 
through  raising  the  standards  of  mental  and 
moral  qualities,  through  the  acceptance  of  pro- 
grammes by  reason  of  their  justice,  rationality, 
and  wisdom.  It  trusts  to  no  regeneration  by 
trick  or  force.  Founding  itself  on  the  com- 
mon sense  of  everj^  day  experience,  it  knows 
that,  come  enthusiasm  or  depression,  impa- 
tience or  lethargy,  the  enlightened  State  can 
be  built  up  and  maintained  only  by  enlightened 
citizens.  It  walks  with  the  map  of  Socialism 
in  front  of  it  and  guides  its  steps  by  the  com- 
pass of  democracy.  It  issues  from  the  past,  it 
deals  with  the  present,  it  has  a  clear  concep- 
tion of  the  future;  it  unites  these  relationships 
into  a  great  living  movement.     In  the  Inter- 


158     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

national  it  co-operates  with  its  kindred.  Upon 
its  consistency  with  itself  depends  its  success, 
and  upon  its  success  depends  the  future  of  So- 
cialism in  this  country. 


MEMORANDUM    ON    HOUSE    OF    COMMONS 

BUSINESS  PRESENTED  TO  THE  ADVISORY 

COMMITTEE  OF  THE  LABOUR  PARTY  ON 

THE  MACHINERY  OF  GOVERNMENT 

I. — The  Position  of  Members. 

The  present  procedure  of  the  House  of  Commons 
regarding  legislation  is  as  follows : — 

1.  The  Cabinet.  All  important  legislation  is 
introduced  by  Government,  and  the  Government  has 
sole  control  of  the  effective  time  of  the  House  of 
Commons. 

Policy  as  a  rule  is  discussed  in  connection  with 
financial  supply,  for  which  one  day  a  week  (Thurs- 
day, as  a  rule)  is  assigned.  A  practice  has  been 
maintained  of  leaving  the  opposition  parties  the 
choice  of  what  supply  shall  be  put  down  week  by 
week,  and  the  various  opposition  groups  in  the  House 
of  Commons  (before  the  war,  these  were  the  Conser- 
vative, the  Irish,  and  the  Labour  Parties)  have  a 
share  of  the  twenty-one  days  allotted  by  Standing 
Orders  (the  Labour  Party  has  three  days)  in  pro- 
portion to  their  membership  in  the  House.     In  this 

159 


160     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

way  it  can  be  said  that  the  Opposition  can  always 
bring  up  for  debate  in  the  House  of  Commons  any 
question  of  departmental  policy  which  it  desires  to 
discuss.  In  actual  practice,  however,  this  amounts 
to  very  little,  because  before  the  discussion  takes 
place  the  policy  has  been  inaugurated,  and  though 
the  debate  may  lead  to  modifications  by  exposing 
blunders,  if  the  vote  is  challenged  the  Government 
puts  on  its  Whips  and  can  rely  upon  the  support  of 
its  majority.  Still,  it  is  a  mistake  to  assume  that  a 
government  is  indifferent  to  everything  but  votes. 
Minorities  have  influence  in  the  House  of  Comr    ns. 

The  consideration  of  Government  Bills  takes  up 
the  greater  part  of  the  time  of  the  Session  which 
remains,  and  owing  to  comparatively  recent  develop- 
ments in  the  theory  and  practice  of  the  Opposition, 
Parliamentary  work  has  become  more  and  more  a 
contest  between  two  big  parties  in  the  House.  Thus, 
the  rights  of  Private  Members  to  initiate  legislation 
have  not  only  been  curtailed  by  the  amount  of  time 
which  Government  business  requires,  but  have  ceased 
to  occupy  any  considerable  place  in  the  minds  of 
Members  of  the  House  of  Commons  owing  to  the  view 
which  ordinary  members  of  Parliament  have  come  to 
take  of  their  Party  duties. 

2.  Private  Members.  The  Standing  Orders  of 
the  House  of  Commons  still  retain  certain  Private 


MEMORANDUM  161 

Members'  rights,  although  these  Standing  Orders  are 
always  subject  to  modification  by  resolutions  relating 
to  business  moved  by  the  Government  and  supported 
by  a  Government  majority. 

In  ordinary  times  the  rights  of  a  Private  Member 
consist  in  (1)  the  right  to  initiate  legislation  ;  (2)  the 
right  to  move  resolutions. 

The  Fridays  from  the  beginning  of  the  Session  up 
to  Whitsuntide  are  reserved  for  the  Second  Reading 
discussion  of  Bills  introduced  by  Private  ^Members 
who  are  fortunate  in  the  ballot  which  is  taken  at  the 
beg  ling  of  each  Session,  and  two  Fridays  after 
"\ATiitsunda3'  for  the  Report  Stages  of  such  of  those 
Bills  as  have  gone  through  Committee.  A  Friday  sit- 
ting, however,  is  a  short  one,  and  it  is  well  recognised 
that  the  Speaker  is  not  likely  to  grant  the  closure  so 
as  to  get  a  Second  Reading  Division  upon  any  Bill 
which  is  of  first-rate  importance,  although  after  the 
subject  of  Women's  Suffrage  had  often  been  dis- 
cussed the  closure  was  given  3'ear  after  year.  There 
is  also  an  unwritten  rule — which  one  is  well  advised 
to  recognise — that,  if  the  closure  is  to  be  given,  the 
mover  and  seconder  of  a  Friday  Bill  must  have  fin- 
ished their  speeches  before  one  o'clock.  Thus  they 
are  allowed  about  three-quarters  of  an  hour  between 
them.  A  list  of  Bills  introduced  on  Fridays  during 
the  last  ten  or  twelve  j^ears,  and  finally  put  upon 


162     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

the  Statute  Book,  contains  hardly  a  single  measure 
of  importance. 

When  a  Private  Member's  Bill  gets  a  Second  Read- 
ing on  a  Friday  it  has  to  go  to  Committee,  and  un- 
less it  gets  through  Committee  in  time  to  get  a  good 
place  amongst  Bills  discussed  on  the  first  two  Fri- 
day's after  Whitsuntide,  it  has  very  little  chance  of 
being  heard  of  again  that  Session. 

In  some  instances,  however,  where  the  Bill  is  prac- 
tically non-contentious  or  is  being  blocked  by  an  in- 
significant number  of  Members,  the  Government  is 
induced  to  take  it  up  as  a  Government  measure,  and 
it  has  a  chance  of  being  pushed  through  amongst  the 
miscellaneous  collection  of  Bills  which  pass  towards 
the  end  of  a  Session. 

In  addition  to  this,  Private  Members  have  occa- 
sionally been  able  to  get  small  Bills  on  some  subject 
(for  instance.  Registration  of  Births  Bill),  upon 
which  for  one  reason  or  another  active  public  opinion 
has  been  roused,  before  the  House  of  Commons  and 
passed  as  non-opposed  after  eleven  o'clock,  or  they 
have  been  able  by  careful  study  of  the  Order  Paper 
to  get  them  discussed  at  times  when  the  House  of 
Commons  would  otherwise  adjourn.  This,  however, 
amounts  to  very  little. 

In  short  a  Private  Member  has  become  a  mere  fol- 
lower and  supporter  of  the  Government,  with  little 


MEMORANDUM  16B 

initiative,  little  independence,  and  little  power.  In 
addition  to  the  Friday  Bills  a  Private  Member  can 
move  resolutions.  He  can  do  this  in  connection  with 
supply  and  the  sittings  of  the  House  from  8.15  on 
Tuesdays  and  Wednesdays  after  the  address  has  been 
disposed  of  up  to  Easter,  and  Wednesdays  between 
Easter  and  Whitsuntide  are  at  his  disposal  provided 
he  is  successful  in  a  ballot.  But  again,  though  the 
debate  may  be  interesting,  it  has  rarely  any  practical 
bearing  on  legislation  or  administration.  There  is 
no  power  behind  it,  and  the  Government  discards  the 
decision  of  Parliament  if  it  wishes. 

Government  Time. 

The  question  of  Parliamentary  time  has  a  deciding 
influence  upon  all  proposals  for  House  of  Commons 
reform. 

The  notion  that  it  is  the  business  of  an  Opposition 
to  obstruct  has  given  rise  to  an  Opposition  policy  to 
waste  as  much  time  as  possible.  This  is  having  dis- 
astrous effects  upon  Parliamentary  Government  and 
has  brought  servitude  to  the  Cabinet  in  its  train,  to- 
gether with  closure  rules  which  destroy  discussion. 

Government  time  (exclusive  of  supply)  should  not 
be  more  than  one-half  the  time  of  a  Session,  and  the 
Government  should  be  protected  against  wanton  ob- 


164     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

struction  by  the  creation  of  a  form  of  closure  which 
gives  a  chairman  (acting  with  a  Committee  of  Chair- 
men) powers  to  select  the  amendments  to  be  taken, 
and  also  to  declare  that  a  discussion  has  brought  out 
all  the  salient  points  and  must  be  ended. 

Other  Time-Sittings  of  Parliament. 

The  remainder  of  the  time  should  be  divided  be- 
tween supply,  Bills  that  have  received  the  approval 
of  the  Committee  on  Legislation  (discussed  at  a  later 
point  in  this  Memorandum),  reports  from  the  various 
committees  proposed  to  be  set  up,  resolutions  brought 
in  under  the  various  provisions  of  the  Standing  Or- 
ders, and  adjournment  motions  as  now  provided  for. 

Business  unfinished  in  one  Session  should,  on  reso- 
lution of  the  Committee  on  Legislation,  be  carried 
over  to  the  next  Session,  but  no  Bill  which  has  only 
got  the  length  of  a  Second  Reading  should  claim  this 
privilege.  The  business  of  the  Committee  on  Legis- 
lation should  not  be  interrupted,  however,  by  the  close 
of  the  Session. 

In  view  of  the  increasing  work  which  the  House  of 
Commons  is  called  upon  to  do,  which  will  not  be  di- 
minished, though  it  may  be  changed  in  character  and 
importance  by  devolution,  the  present  hours  of  meet- 
ing are  unsatisfactory.     Morning  sessions  must  be 


MEMORANDUM  165 

more  frequent.  It  is  of  the  greatest  importance  that 
in  every  Session  there  should  be  at  least  one  discus- 
sion on  the  general  policy  of  departments,  and  that 
could  be  secured  by  special  morning  sittings. 

II. — The  Problem  of  Legislation. 

Legislation  from  session  to  session  must  be  a  sys- 
tematic treatment  of  national  needs.  Therefore  it 
cannot  be  left  to  the  disorganised  efforts  of  Private 
Members  who  interest  themselves  in  special  questions. 

( 1 )  There  must  be  some  organ  of  Parliament  pro- 
ducing Bills  which,  session  by  session,  meet  national 
requirements,  and  which  are  systematically  related  to 
the  existing  body  of  law  and  administration. 

(2)  This  organ,  whether  it  is  a  Cabinet  or  some 
other  kind  of  Parliamentary  Committee,  must  not 
reduce  the  Private  Member  to  a  state  of  impotence 
and  servitude. 

I  propose: 

(1)  That  the  political  heads  of  the  chief  depart- 
ments should  constitute,  as  they  now  do,  a  Cabinet 
whose  main  functions  will  be: 

(a)  To  co-ordinate  administration  with  legis- 
lation and  the  departments  with  Parlia- 
ment. 


166     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

(b)    To  be  responsible  collectively  for  the  main 
lines  and  subjects  of  legislation  from  ses- 
sion to  session. 
(2)    That  at  the  beginning  of  every  session  there 
should  be  appointed  from  Members  not  holding  of- 
ficial positions  a  Committee  on  Legislation,  the  vari- 
ous parties  and  groups  in  the  House  being  repre- 
sented in  proportion  to  their  numbers.     The  duty  of 
this  Committee  should  be: 

(a)  To  appoint  Sub-Committees  to  report  upon 
proposed  legislation  as  the  Committee 
thinks  fit. 

(b)  To  report  upon  Private  Members'  Bills  to 
the  Cabinet  and  to  the  House  of  Commons. 

(c)  To  cause  Bills  to  be  prepared,  and  for  this 
purpose  to  have  a  staff  of  official  drafts- 
men. 

(d)  To  consult  with  the  departmental  officials 
concerned  in  the  business  which  it  is  con- 
sidering. 

(e)  To  report  to  the  House  of  Commons  from 
session  to  session  on  legislation  passed  and 
required. 

It  should  not  deal  with  Cabinet  Bills.  The  func- 
tions of  this  Committee  are  so  important  as  to  re- 
quire the  creation  of  a  secretariat  equipped  in  the 
most  efficient  way. 


MEMORANDUM  167 

I  am  not,  however,  in  favour  of  this  Committee  be- 
ing the  sole  source  of  legislation.  I  think  that  the 
Government  should  be  responsible  for  the  main  legis- 
lative work  of  the  session,  but  this  Committee  should 
take  a  wider  survey  of  national  needs  and  should  in 
particular  see  that  matters  which  lie  outside  those 
which  press  themselves  upon  a  Cabinet,  which  consid- 
ers principally  departmental  needs  and  party  obli- 
gations, are  not  neglected.  International  legislation 
should  also  be  watched  by  this  Committee.  The  con- 
tact between  this  Committee  and  the  Cabinet  should, 
however,  be  very  intimate  and  should  be  carried  on 
through  these  channels: 

(a)  Ministers    summoned    for    consultation    as 

need  arises. 

(b)  Contact  with  any  Committee  appointed  by 

the  House  of  Commons  to  assist  depart- 
ments. 

The  Committee  and  Private  Members. 

The  ballot  for  Bills  at  the  beginning  of  each  ses- 
sion is  obviously  an  unsatisfactory  arrangement  and 
inadequate.  For  the  time  being  it  should  be  contin- 
ued, however,  and  Bills  thus  favoured  by  fortune 
should  go  through  the  existing  procedure,  but  be  ex- 
amined by  the  Committee  on  Legislation  with  a  view 


168     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

to  facilities  being  given  to  those  Bills  of  which  the 
Committee  approves.  In  addition  to  that  the  Com- 
mittee should  consider  and  report  upon  other  Private 
Members'  Bills,  priority  being  given  to  Bills  sent  to 
the  Committee  after  introduction  to  the  House  of 
Commons  with  the  support  of  at  least  forty  Mem- 
bers. 

Parliamentary  Time. 

The  effect  of  these  proposals  would  be  to  increase 
the  number  of  Bills  prepared  for  discussion  and 
partly  discussed,  but  not  to  increase  Parliamentary 
time  which  seems  to  be  necessary  if  the  work  of  Par- 
liament is  to  be  improved. 

The  following  points,  however,  must  be  noted: 

(1)  Obstruction  is  practised  against  the  Govern- 
ment and  the  measures  which  carry  out  Government 
policy,  and  these  proposals  (a)  will  bring  legislative 
proposals  before  Parliament  for  which  the  Govern- 
ment is  not  responsible;  and  (b)  will  enable  the  Gov- 
ernment to  transfer  to  the  Committee  on  Legislation 
a  great  many  Bills  which  the  Government  has  now  to 
take  in  charge.  This,  by  removing  the  motives  for 
obstruction,  is  tantamount  to  increasing  the  time  of 
Parliament. 

(2)  The  present  hours  during  which  the  House 
of  Commons  meets  are  not  favourable  for  the  dis- 


MEMORANDUM  169 

patch  of  business.  For  instance,  the  hours  between 
8  p.m.  and  11  p.m.  are  not  of  much  use  except  for 
grand  partisan  demonstrations  on  the  occasions  of 
great  debates.  A  dinner  before  a  demonstration  is 
an  expedient  the  value  of  which  is  well  known  to  the 
stage  managers  of  the  parties.  Forenoon  sittings  are 
objected  to  chiefly  on  the  grounds  (a)  that  Ministers 
must  attend  to  departmental  duties;  (b)  that  Mem- 
bers who  are  doing  their  duty  have  to  devote  the 
morning  to  correspondence  and  other  Parliamentary 
work;  and  (c)  that  Members  in  business  must  devote 
to  business  their  forenoons  before  going  to  the  House 
of  Commons.  I  do  not  consider  that  these  consider- 
ations are  so  weighty  that  no  forenoon  sittings  can 
be  held,  and  I  should  like  to  see  the  House  meeting 
for  two  days  a  week  at  10  or  10.30  a.m.  and  rising 
at  8  p.m. 

(3)  Committees  should  be  used  more  freely  than 
they  are  to  discuss  the  details  of  Bills  (Committee 
stage).  (This  has  been  done  since  this  Memoran- 
dum was  drafted.) 

Votes  of  Members. 

There  is  perhaps  no  greater  scandal  in  the  whole 
procedure  of  the  House  of  Commons  than  the  use 
of  Whips.  Party  followers,  irrespective  of  their  own 
convictions,  are  thus  practically  compelled  to  vote 


170     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

as  the  Cabinet — or  indeed  often  a  IMinister — has  de- 
cided for  them.  This  is  really  a  comparatively  recent 
growth,  and  has  arisen  because  Parliament  has  be- 
come more  completely  an  instrument  in  the  hands  of 
the  Government,  and  the  floor  and  the  division  lob- 
bies the  arena  of  a  never-ending  partisan  conflict. 
The  most  trivial  and  unessential  details  of  a  Bill  are 
thus  regarded  as  matters  of  confidence  in  the  Gov- 
ernment, and  the  free  criticism  of  the  House  and  the 
responsible  action  of  Members  are  being  suppressed 
by  the  Party  machine.  This  has  been  carried  to  such 
an  extent  that  Members  are  ceasing  to  act  as  respon- 
sible representatives,  and  are  losing  the  capacity  so 
to  act.  On  the  few  occasions  when  Party  Whips  are 
not  put  on,  the  crowd  of  Members  streaming  into  the 
lobbies  without  any  knowledge  of,  or  opinion  upon, 
the  question  at  issue  is  swayed  with  confusion,  and 
this  confusion  is  sometimes  used  as  an  argument  in 
favour  of  the  Whips,  whereas  it  is  a  proof  of  the  mis- 
chief of  the  present  practice.  The  subservience  of 
Members  in  the  division  lobbies  cannot  be  separated 
from  the  subordination  of  the  Private  Members  in 
legislation. 

By  diminishing  the  legislative  power  of  the  Gov- 
ernment and  by  introducing  a  new  legislative  author- 
ity (the  Committee  on  Legislation)  we  diminish  the 
extent  of  the  Whips*  operations. 


MEMORANDUM  171 

That,  however,  is  not  enough,  and  the  House  of 
Commons  should,  by  resolution  supported  by  the  con- 
duct of  Members  who  care  for  the  responsibility  of 
Parliament  as  a  whole,  put  an  end  to  the  practice  of 
considering  every  trifling  amendment  as  a  declara- 
tion of  want  of  confidence  in  the  Government. 

Departmental  Committees. 

I  have  now  to  consider  the  question  of  Committees 
of  the  House  to  deal  with  departmental  business  and 
watch  policy. 

The  appointment  of  these  Committees  is  advisable 
for  the  following  reasons : 

(a)  To  use  the  abilities  of  Members  of  Parlia- 

ment in  a  way  which  the  existing  system 
does  not  do ; 

(b)  To  instruct  Parliament  and  make  it  a  more 

business-like  assembly ; 

(c)  To  narrow  the  gulf  that  is  opening  between 

the   Executive  and  the  Legislature  and 
to  restore  to  each — 

(1)  its    proper    constitutional    func- 
tions, and 

(2)  its    interdependent    relationships. 


172     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

The  Functions  of  the  Committees. 

Various  views  are  held  of  what  the  functions  of 
the  Committees  ought  to  be,  and  their  relations  to 
the  Cabinet,  Parliamentary  control,  and  Ministers, 
but  these  may  be  conveniently  summarised  under 
three  headings.     They  might: 

(a)  Determine  departmental  policy. 

(b)  Consult  with  Ministers  regarding  depart- 

mental policy. 

(c)  Keep  in  touch  as  representatives  of  Par- 

liament with  departmental  policy. 
These   three   possible    functions    are   not   comple- 
mentary to  each  other,  but  indeed  represent  differing 
views  of  the  utility  of  such  Committees  and  should  be 
considered  separately. 

(a)  Determine  Departmental  Policy. 

The  chairman  of  such  a  Committee  should  ob- 
viously be  responsible  (a)  to  the  Cabinet,  and  (b)  to 
the  House  of  Commons ;  otherwise  there  will  be  two 
authorities,  and  this  will  not  work  satisfactorily. 

Note: 

(a)  Would  such  a  chairman  have  access  to  papers 
and  information  denied  to  the  members  of  the  Com- 
mittee? This  would  have  special  point  as  regards 
the  Foreign  Office. 


MEMORANDUM  173 

(b)  Would  minorities  be  expected  to  be  quite  free 
to  act  as  independent  members  (as  partisans,  in  an 
extreme  instance)  when  the  business  of  the  depart- 
ment is  discussed  by  the  whole  House?  Or,  to  put 
this  differently,  would  minorities  go  on  to  the  Com- 
mittees as  watchdogs  for  their  Party  and  use  their 
knowledge  for  partisan  fighting?  Would  this  sys- 
tem discourage  partisan  fighting,  or  intensify  it,  or 
make  no  difference  to  it? 

The  position  of  the  Minister-Chairman  must  be 
considered. 

(1)  The  system  would  tend  to  make  each  depart- 
ment independent  and  destroj'  collective  government 
responsibility ;  but 

Note. — The  Chairman  might  pursue  a  party  pol- 
icy agreed  to  by  a  Cabinet  which  the  majority  of 
the  Committee  would  support  in  the  same  way  as 
majorities  now  support  Governments.  Thus  we  could 
have  a  change  in  machinery  without  a  change  of  sub- 
stance. This  is  "Government  by  Committee,"  and 
I  believe  that  such  a  change  would  be  for  the  worse 
and  not  the  better.  To  substitute  a  Committee  for 
a  Minister  or  to  govern  by  a  Committee  and  a  Min- 
ister-Chairman would  remove  none  of  the  evils  of  our 
present  practice,  but  might  accentuate  them. 

(2)  For  what  would  the  Minister  speak  in  Parlia- 
ment?   A  Cabinet  or  his  Committee?    And  who  would 


174     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

resign  on  a  serious  adverse  vote — the  Minister,  the 
Government,  the  majority  of  the  Committee? 
I  am  inclined  to  take  the  following  view: 

(a)  It  would  be  a  gain  to  have  more  departmental 
independence. 

(b)  At  the  same  time  we  must  retain  in  general 
policy  some  form  of  Government  responsibility  as  I 
do  not  believe  that  we  could  get  the  best  from  Com- 
mittees of  various  abilities  and  views  acting  quite  in- 
dependently and  unguided  by  a  common  outlook  and 
a  common  conception  of  progressive  effort  expressed 
either  in  a  party  programme  or  by  the  decisions  of 
representative  consultation. 

I  therefore  think  that  a  scheme  devised  from  the 
next  two  proposals  would  be  best. 

(b)  Consult  •with  Ministers. 

A  Committee  with  powers  thus  limited  might  be: 

(a)  Summoned  only  when  Ministers  wish.  (Such 
Committees  have  been  set  up  since  the  war  began.) 

(b)  Independent,  meeting  at  regular  times,  mak- 
ing their  own  enquiries,  and  deciding  for  themselves 
what  they  wished  to  do  as  consultants. 

Clearly  the  second  is  the  only  tolerable  position. 
Such  a  Committee  should  be  presided  over  by  the 
Minister  who  should  be  ex-officio  member  and  Chair- 


MEMORANDUM  175 

man,  but  who  should  be  in  the  position  of  a  judge 
acting  with  assessors.  The  Committee  should  ex- 
press its  views,  but  the  responsibility  of  acting  must 
be  upon  the  Minister.  The  powers  of  such  a  Com- 
mittee should  include: 

(a)  Examination  of  departmental  estimates  be- 

fore final  decisions. 

(b)  Consideration  of  departmental  bills. 

(c)  Consideration  of  departmental  policy,  espe- 

cially of  a  wide  character. 

(d)  In  the  application  of  the  Whitley  proposals 

to  Government  departments  the  Commit- 
tee should  rank  as  the  employer. 

(e)  The  publication  of  an  annual  report  on  the 

work  and  policy  of  the  Department. 

When  departmental  business  is  before  the  House 
of  Commons,  the  members  of  such  Committee  would 
be  free  to  act  as  uncommitted  Members  of  Parlia- 
ment, but  their  criticisms  would  be  based  on  knowl- 
edge and  their  actions  controlled  by  responsibility. 

Note. — It  might  be  that  the  differences  in  the  na- 
ture of  departments,  e.g..  Home  Office  and  War  Of- 
fice, Local  Government  Board  and  Foreign  Office, 
Treasury  and  Colonial  Office,  might,  in  any  event 
during  an  experimental  stage,  necessitate  that  some- 
what different  terms  of  reference  should  be  drawn 
up  for  some  of  the  Committees. 


176     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

(c)   Keep  in  Touch  with  Departmental  Policy. 

I  do  not  think  that  this  alone  is  adequate.  The 
power  of  merely  sitting,  of  calling  for  information,  of 
discussing  without  the  Minister  being  present,  would 
not  bear  any  fruitful  result,  but  would  be  very  likely 
to  create  a  Committee  that  would  very  soon  degener- 
ate into  a  mere  critical  organ,  not  only  with  no  re- 
sponsibility (which  is  not  in  itself  necessarily  ob- 
jectionable), but  with  a  feeling  of  constitutional  op- 
position to  the  department  (which  is  most  objection- 
able). 

Composition  of  the  Committees. 

Much  can  be  said  for  the  selection  of  these  Com- 
mittees by  ballot  of  the  whole  House  on  the  principle 
of  Proportional  Representation  as  it  is  essential  that 
upon  them  minorities  should  be  represented. 

The  Minister's  policy — in  so  far  as  it  is  the  Gov- 
ernment's policy — ought  in  justice  to  him  to  have 
the  backing  of  a  majority  on  the  Committee.  This 
end  has  been  secured  hitherto  by  the  selection  of 
Committees  by  a  Committee  specially  appointed  by 
the  House  for  this  purpose  at  the  beginning  of  each 
session.  Upon  this  Committee  each  Party  has  rep- 
resentation in  proportion  to  its  strength  in  the 
House,  and  one  of  its  representatives  is  always  one 


MEMORANDUM  177 

of  its  Whips.  The  Whips  present  the  list  of  their 
followers  they  have  selected  for  each  Committee,  and 
the  Selection  Committee  accepts  them.  This  method 
provides  for: 

(a)  The  requisite  Party  balance. 

(b)  The  selection  as  a  rule  of  men  who  are  keen 

to  serve  on  this  Committee  or  that :   but 
it  does  not  ^arantee 

(a)  That  the  best  men  are  selected  apart  from 

the  desire  of  the  Whip  (some  recent  se- 
lections have  been  almost  scandalous). 

(b)  That  the  parties  represented  have  had  any 

choice  of  their  representatives. 

When  setting  up  these  new  Committees  it  is  de- 
sirable that  some  care  should  be  taken  to  secure,  so 
far  as  it  can  be  done,  these  two  conditions. 

Before  making  up  the  lists  for  the  ballot,  Members 
should  be  asked  to  state  upon  what  Committee  if 
any,  they  desire  to  be,  and  no  Member  should  be 
allowed  to  serve  on  more  than  one  Committee. 

The  Committees,  the  Cabinet,  and  Ministers. 

(1)  These  Committees  will  not  supplant,  but  sup- 
plement, the  Cabinet,  which  will  still  retain : 

(a)  Its  control  over  general  policy. 

(b)  Collective    responsibility,    which,    however, 

will  then  be  upon  a  limited  and  better 
defined  type  of  policy. 


178     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

(2)  So  also  Ministers  will  not  change  their  pres- 
ent status  as  being  responsible  to  the  Government, 
but  having  to  work  with  Committees  the  advantages 
of  selection  by  the  party  in  power  will  be  secured 
without  the  obvious  disadvantages  of  a  direct  election 
from  Members  of  the  party  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. This  will  also  enable  Governments  and  Prime 
Ministers  to  draw  upon  ability  in  the  House  of 
Lords  (the  question  of  two  Chambers  was  not  dis- 
cussed in  this  Memorandum,  but  was  to  be  the  sub- 
ject of  discussion  later  on)  for  Ministerial  appoint- 
ments. 

The  Cabinet. 

The  organisation  of  Parliamentary  business  by  a 
party  policy  requires  a  Committee  with  differentiated 
functions  like  the  Cabinet. 

There  are  two  conceptions  of  Parliament  between 
which  we  must  decide: 

(a)  The  organic  representation  of  the  national 

will  charged  to  carry  out  a  policy  em- 
bodying large  principles  of  progress  and 
social  and  political  justice. 

(b)  A  collection  of  men  administering  the  af- 

fairs of  the  nation  from  day  to  day  with 
heads  acting  as  though  they  were  civil 
servants. 


MEMORANDUM  179 

Under  (a)  a  Minister  or  Government  would  re- 
sign and  refuse  responsibility  if  Parliament  decided 
upon  a  policy  which  he  considered  to  be  in  violation 
of  good  government. 

Under  (b)  a  Minister  or  Government  would  put 
up  a  case,  but,  if  its  advice  were  rejected,  would  not 
continue  to  remain  responsible  for  what  it  consid- 
ered unwise  or  unjust. 

(a)  with  its  occasional  anomalies  and  problems 
in  conduct  that  are  almost  insoluble  is  a  better  prin- 
ciple to  guide  one  than  (b). 

The  abuses  and  dangers  it  presents  are  chiefly: 

(a)  Growth  of  power  until  a  point  is  reached 

when  the  Parliamentary  majority  is  in 
its  private  possession. 

(b)  A   conception   of  its  dignity  which  means 

that  Parliament  does  not  work  with  it, 
but  must  accept  all  its  decisions. 

(c)  A  conception  of  its  unity  which  means  that 

it  considers  itself  responsible  for  every 
Minister,  and  that  every  Minister  must 
support  in  everything  his  colleagues  in 
the  Government  whether  he  approves  or 
not. 
The  question  we  should  consider,  therefore,  is  how, 
whilst  retaining  Cabinets,  Parliament  can  limit  them 


180     PARLIAMENT  AND  REVOLUTION 

to  their  proper  functions  and  powers  and  responsi- 
bilities. 

Note. — The  various  proposals  that  have  been  made 
to  abolish  the  Cabinet  fail  to  take  into  consideration 
the  fact  that  whether  we  recognise  a  Cabinet  or  not, 
the  general  policy  of  a  party  commanding  a  majority 
will  be  discussed  and  settled  by  a  Council  of  party 
chiefs.  The  Cabinet  can  be  abolished  in  word;  it 
cannot  be  abolished  in  fact. 

J.  RAMSAY  MACDONALD. 
August,  1917. 


PLAYS  FOR  A 
PEOPLE'S  THEATRE 


WHAT    ARE    PLAYS    FOR    A   PEOPLE'S 
THEATRE? 

PLAYS  for  A  People's  Theatre  are  such  plays 
as  the  people  ought  to  have.  The  people 
ought  to  have  the  best  that  the  genius  of  the 
world  can  produce.  They  should  be  good  acting 
plays  and  good  reading  plays.  And  they  should  deal 
with  the  things  that  really  matter  to  the  people. 
The  people's  play-reading  and  play-seeing  should 
be  as  much  a  part  of  their  lives  as  their  work,  their 
business,  their  homes.  The  writers  of  their  plays 
must  know  the  people,  and  must  reproduce  in  art- 
istic, and  therefore  enjoyable  form,  their  emotions, 
their  loves,  their  hates,  their  griefs,  their  strivings 
and  aspirations. 

This  is  the  important  task  which  the  promoters 
of  these  plays  have  set  themselves.  In  so  far  as  the 
publishers  are  concerned  they  confidently  believe  that 
this  series  will  accomplish  the  end  which  the  founders 
of  the  enterprise  and  the  workers  for  it  aim  to 
achieve.  It  is  easy  for  publishers  to  publish  good 
plays  if  the  authors  write  them.  And  it  needs  but 
a  glance  at  the  names  of  the  authors  who  have  con- 
sented to  co-operate  in  the  undertaking  to  be  con- 
vinced that  the  plays  will  be  the  best  that  modern 
literature  can  offer. 


Here  are  some  of  the  names: 

D.  H.  Lawrence 
Hamilton  Fyfe 
Shaw  Desmond 
Douglas  Goldring. 

They  are  all  English.  In  time,  it  is  hoped,  that 
Americans  of  equal  distinction  will  join  their  Eng- 
lish brethren  of  the  pen,  and  make  this  a  truly  rep- 
resentative series  of  all  who  write  in  the  English 
language. 

From  time  to  time  translations  of  good  dramas 
from  the  French,  Italian,  Russian,  and  other  lan- 
guages will  also  be  added. 

They  will  be  very  up-to-date  plays.  The  authors 
are  a  guarantee  of  that.  It  is  mainly  through  the 
efforts  of  Douglas  Goldring  that  this  series  has  come 
into  being,  and  his  definition  of  "People"  is  a  pecu- 
liarly modern  one.  The  people  are  the  workers.  Not 
workers  in  the  narrow  sense.  All  people  who  do 
useful  things,  who  contribute  to  society's  making  a 
living  by  brain  or  muscle,  in  shop,  factory,  office 
or  home,  are  workers — all  except   parasites. 

The  title  of  the  series— PLAYS  FOR  A  PEO- 
PLE'S THEATRE— naturally  carries  with  it  the 
idea  that  the  people  ought  to  have  a  chance  to  see 
these  plays  as  well  as  to  read  them.  The  men  who 
are  interested  in  the  series  will  do  their  best  to  carry 
through  this  idea  also.  But  as  their  demands  for  A 
PEOPLE'S  THEATRE  are  as  high  and  exacting 
as  their  literary  demands  for  A  PEOPLE'S  PLAYS, 


the  difficulties  seem  to  be  well-nigh  insurmountable, 
and  the  accomplishment  very  far  off.  In  the  mean- 
time it  is  no  paltry  achievement  to  have  these  plays 
accessible  in  book  form  for  reading. 

The  following  are  the  first  three  volumes  announced 
for  publication  in  the  spring: — 

I.  THE  FIGHT  FOR  FREEDOM.  By  Douglas 
Goldring.  With  a  Preface  by  Henri  Bar- 
busse. 

II.  TOUCH  AND  GO.     By  D.  H.  Lawrence. 

III.  THE  KINGDOM,  THE  POWER  AND  THE 
GLORY.     By  Hamilton  Fyfe. 

12mo.    Ornamental  boards,  $1.00  net  per  volume. 


^ 


SCOTT   &   SELTZER,   5   West   50th   Street,  New  York 


AUG  29  1980 

DATE  DUE 

CAYLORO 

miNTCDINU.S.A. 

UZ; 


^  0 


JN234  1920  M3 
MacDonald,  James  Ramsay, 
1866-1937. 

Parliament  and  revolution. 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


AA    001  124  594 


